Red's 01 4Runner

[Large]

Copy & paste from another forum

Bought a pretty clean 3rd gen, semi-built for $8k .. I plan to make this my primary rig. I've owned 5 - 2nd gen tacos and always wanted a 3rd or 4th gen runner so I scooped it up.
Has 160k ~ on the odo, and nothing mechanically wrong.

Mods:
Shrockworks sliders
Shrockworks HC rear
Shrockworks front
OME rear lift, around 2" or so

Needs:
ARB F&R, has a center diff lock which worked pretty well
More lights - lighting situation at night is abysmal
OBA, stainless lines probably
Going to cut off the jerry can holder on the rear bumper, useless to me
I want to line-x the whole shebang army green or something, maybe cement color
Projectors in the headlights
33s, new wheels with more backspacing
A proper front lift (on spacers now)
A winch would help but not 100% necessary right now

 

[Large]

A group and I went to hidden falls adventure park this past weekend, the runner did pretty good for being on 265s.

Carnage:
Front CV broke
Rear tail light
Front pinion flange on the drive shaft

Luckily I knew the CVs were in terrible shape so I had some OEM re-manufactures on order.



This piece was inside the diff on the add side stuck in the sleeve. Removed the sleeve and lined up the splines best I could and 'gently' tapped on the diff with a rock, and it came out.

 

[Large]

For those of you that didn't see this on some form of social media this past weekend, this is the remnants of a 5th gen Pro.

This was a pretty gnarly obstacle to say the least, the spotter told him to bump it and well he bumped it a little too hard and rolled 1.5 times landing on its side.

Recovery took about 7 hours, it doesn't look too bad (the angle) in this picture but it's steep and there were lots of huge rocks hindering our recovery. What we decided to end up doing was putting it on its upright position and trying to pull it down, but the problem was the wheels literally melted and it was getting caught on everything on the way down. We rolled it back on its roof and slid it down, I will try to find the vids from this and post them here.

Once down here we carefully navigated a duramax and a gooseneck through the trail with relative ease, loaded it up and went on about our day.

Literally almost everything melted except the frame and shell..

 

[Large]

More carnage.. pinion broke at the flange. I'm only on 32s so this shouldn't happen, buddy thinks the ring gear got in a bind and jammed - when that happened the pinion snapped. Ordered new diffs front and rear, ARBs & 4.56s through ECGS.. should be here in 2 weeks.

 

[Large]

OBA setup ordered, here is a quick reudamentary drawing I did



I've got a lot of work to do over the xmas holiday. Also have a hot springs trip ORV park trip planned in a couple of weeks which I will report back on.

 

[Large]

OBA system arrived, not sure where I'm going to mount the tank. I want to mound it under where the spare was but I don't want it sticking down. Might just end up mounting it in the back somewhere.
Quick couplers, fill chuck and ARB deflator arrived as well with some tubing fittings. I wanted to do stainless but it will be at a later date.

 

[Large]

Got some more parts in. Switches, blank banks and my regulator for the ARB manifold

 

[Large]

Went out to Hot Springs off road park this past weekend and had a blast. If you check post #6 you'll see that my front diff was broke and my new ones had not arrived yet from ECGS. My buddy happened to have a spare front diff that he let me use so we swapped it out at the park in the wee early morning. It was about 20 degrees.

I also swapped out the other bad CV while I was under there, so I had a decent front diff and 2 new OEM cv's (refurb cv's from the dealer that is).

Custom hood ornament

And somewhere in there I broke one of my new cv's ...

Put my old crappy one back in and it worked OK ... until I broke the front diff again in the same manner as the previous one. Snapped right at the pinion flange again ... the flange was spinning around flopping and hitting everything, I think somewhere in there it whacked the t-case / tranny kind of hard because I cannot shift in to any gear now. Truck will start fine but not move at all, and there is no resistance when shifting.

I think the t-case was removed and reinstalled and also mounted incorrectly by the previous owner or something along those lines. I shouldn't break 2 diffs and 4 cv's with 31.5s while I am driving like a grandma.

 

[Large]

Been a while, but I've been busy working the past 5 months or so and haven't had time to do anything. I plan to actually start building it this weekend so I figure I will get some things out of the way. I am installing my switches and going to try and wire them all up. First order of business was to remove the single din so I can add the switch panel:



Grab your favorite adult beverage and mock up on the panel under the single din. These will be for what I'm calling the 'utilities' of the runner; compressor, train horn, winch and locker switches. The other 6 gang switch will be for lights only. Not sure of all what will be installed but will have rock lights, ditch lights, side marker lights, maybe remove the 2 PIAA's from the front bumper and put some cubes or spots.



Also started on the plumbing for the OBA and locker manifold, if anyone else is doing something similar make sure you teflon tape THE F out of the fittings. After everything is installed the worst thing is having to go back and find a leak somewhere.



Manifold with the solenoids mounted, you can also see the 100 psi regulator with a psi gauge on it. Don't want to blow a seal on either of the lockers, and ARB says 100 psi max on them I think.



Will update more as I go.

 

[Large]

Worked on the runner a bit this weekend, rear is pretty much done and I really want to start the front next weekend hopefully but my schedule will be pretty busy so we will see what happens. Started with the rear lower links - bent the passenger one somewhere, no idea where so ordered some rokmen (sp?) beefy ones, and yeah they are beefy for sure. Looks about twice the diameter and double the weight.



Passenger side one was a bitch to remove I guess due to the axle shifting, in any case there had to be some maguyver like finagling on the rear axle. With a floor jack and a wedge I got it in there relatively easy.



Driver's side was the same thing, but went right in.



Old rear end:



New rear end:



Went with ECGS 4.56s (only plan on running 33s) and ARB lockers. Front is next but this South TX heat is murderous for a ginger. I also have no friggin clue where to mount the viair tank, seen plenty of places on T4R but don't like any of them. Trying to decide whether I should scrap the tank for a smaller one, or maybe cut out the back of the runner where the spare was and make a recessed storage tank like SMP fab did on their bandito build. WHAT DO?!

 

[Mauzer]

Nice build!

 

[tx_shooter]

Figure out the root cause for all the destruction yet?

 

[Large]

Nice build!

Thanks, it's a pile right now but getting there

Figure out the root cause for all the destruction yet?

Nope .. I'm out 2 front diffs, one of which wasn't mine. I did find a decent low mileage transmission and swapped it out. I should have done a manual J shift t-case at the same time but I didn't want to mess with it.

 

[Taco Loco]

Nice build @Large welcome to the forum.

 

[PSU Taco85]

Sounds like grandma has a heavy foot! Nice rig, sucks about all the carnage though. An 85 toyota front axle should fix most of the issues you are having

 

[Large]

Sounds like grandma has a heavy foot! Nice rig, sucks about all the carnage though. An 85 toyota front axle should fix most of the issues you are having

Tons or gtfo!

To be honest, both times the front diff broke it was shortly after I used the center diff lock.

 

[Mauzer]

Center diff lock just takes you from AWD to actual 4WD

Your problem may be between the steering wheel and driver seat...that’s where ALL mine start

 

[tx_shooter]

Tons or gtfo!

To be honest, both times the front diff broke it was shortly after I used the center diff lock.

If the front axle and transfer case are out of alignment then the locked center diff could cause some pretty severe binding.

 

[PSU Taco85]

Tons or gtfo!

To be honest, both times the front diff broke it was shortly after I used the center diff lock.

I would check the front diff mounts to make sure they aren't tweaked. I broke my front diff mount/front diff ADD tube when my tire got bound up on a trail a few years ago. Made some kind of nasty sound. If the front diff is not secure or tweaked, the pinion could be deflecting under load. Although I've yet to see a pinion break like that, normally the u-joint would be the first to go.

 

[Mauzer]

X2 on both above, it’s odd that you’re snapping pinions and not ring gears

This will help...hey @taco4x4rar see above