4runner refresh

[Arickvan]

well ive been wanting to make a thread for awhile, but its always felt like i havnt really done anything

1986 4runner that i bought pretty much built, 22re dual cases, 37's locked front and rear

well it turns out when i bought it that most of the parts were at the end of there lifespan, this was about 4 years ago now



by now the only thing that i havnt touched is the transmission and im sure thats going to go out any day

this is how i bought it

1st week, took it out to prairie city svra (sacramento area state wheeling park) and discovered the rear arb locker was leaking air

took it to my local trans guy and had him fix it (me being a noob didnt quite know what i was doing)



2 weeks after buying and its time to hit the rubicon for the marlin crawler roundup! so me and a buddy pack the absolute shit out of this thing, floor to ceiling from front to back, we're going to eat like fawking kings!

leave after work and in true marlin fashion we drive the runner to the trail, 12am and we're cruising up hwy 50 (windy mountain hwy) and "wait what just happened?" "what do you mean?" "ive got no power its dead"


fawk me somehow i blew up a 22re!

 

[Arickvan]

so after that i did the reasonable thing and parked it out of sight for about a year

well after that year of neglect it was time to drag it out and get her up and running again!


my buddy was getting a new motor from 22re performance so i called and said I'll have what hes having and they said no problem ordered in January-ish and was promised a before 4th of july date

so now ive got a couple months to mess with this thing before i send it off for a new motor, hmmmmmmmm lets cage it!


bottle of tequila and a holiday weekend and now theres metal tubes that do things new to me seats and remount the battery, oh and new winch controller and its ready to load on the trailer!

 

[Arickvan]

after some trailer last minute pick up drop off drive here drive there mayhem and bam im on the con for the 1st time in my own rig!!

 

[Arickvan]

it might have been that 1st trip or maybe it lasted a second one but, the rear arb locker started blowing air thru the 3rd member silicone seal \

how da fuq?!?!


whatever this things not worth it! call up davez off road up in georgetown and get a detroit 3rd ordered up

 

[Arickvan]

pulled out the old arb third member and ya this thing is wasted bad seals, chucked teeth on the ring, wasted copper air lines


somehow it was leaking air and blowing directly out of the silicone on the 3rd member idk if it was pressurizing the whole axle housing or what

 

[Clb]

Yer tranny guy SUCKS!
It's a sub $100 replacement part from Arb!

 

[Arickvan]

Yer tranny guy SUCKS!
It's a sub $100 replacement part from Arb!

to his credit he did fix the problem at the time

when i brought it to him originally it was the bulkhead fitting that connects the air line to the copper line

 

[Arickvan]

alright so after the rear third got replaced the viar compressor took a shit on me so i replaced it with the big daddy arb pumper

 

[Arickvan]

i think at this point me and a buddy became determined to go to johnson valley for new years, and of course i made a to-do list for the 4runner

i think it was shocks, frame tie in, seat mounts and probly a handful of little things

 

[Arickvan]

ghetto cup holders were on the list naturally

 

[Arickvan]

hammers was cool on new year i would recommend new years if you want to wheel all the trails

being lost newbies i think with did outer limits or spooners, chocolate thunder and then sledge hammer up until the 1st water fall

met some cool people and partied with them, partied a little too hard and smashed the tailgate it

 

[Arickvan]

so after the shit show at johnson valley i had an even bigger to-do list

bent rear end

rebuild knuckles

new shock mounts

new soft top

take off tailgate

buy a house

i was able to rebuild the knuckles and yank the tailgate off before i moved

 

[Arickvan]

got all moved in and decided to do the new rear axle next

so the old set up had a traction bar, but the lower mount on the axle side sat basically centerline of the axle, and a little to close to the third member

so with me and my buddy pretending were iron man ivan stewart thru the deserts of johnson valley caused that lower link to donkey punch the housing

which bent the mating surface from housing to third member so diff fluid was just sloshing out all the time

 

[Arickvan]

bummer that rear axle housing had a bitchin early 2000's flame diff armor its okay the front axle still has it too

picked up a IFS width trail gear housing, looking back i should have gotten the inspection hole thing

 

[Clb]

I was ragging on the silicone on the copper line .
No way that holds, And the crushed copper (having been over tightened ) causing the oring to fail.
The two are most likely connected guys manhandle the copper and fubar.

It's a yota keep it alive and enjoy it.

 

[TRINDU]

The tailgate is impressive. Time for a truck tailgate and lose 100lbs.

 

[Arickvan]

alright back to the story!

so after i made a cheapo soft top out of some extra shade netting that my pops had and added a rear light bar cuz...... well just cuz

 

[Arickvan]

oh ya i think at this point i freshened up the front brakes, which i have no idea what they are, i had to spend like a half hr with the vato zone guy looking for a rotor that matched what i took off

i probably did a few other small things but nothing that i can remember right now, this is in june of 2018

and then really after that i think i was finally able to get a few wheeling trips in without anything breaking, which was a first for me!

heres some "how it sits now" photos that i took from that summer

 

[Arickvan]

heres me realizing i need to learn how to pack for camping better at soup bowl on the con and the bent rear bumper from that trip

 

[Arickvan]

at the end of that summer i did a little welding project to get some practice in and made an axle stand that works okayish and threw the top on for some potential snow wheeling that never happened

 

[Arickvan]

after a winter of neglecting the 4runner, in march of 2019 now i picked up some frame plates, shock hoops, marlin rear bumper and got all that on

man those frame plates end up being alot of welding

dont look too closely at the welds

pro tip: get a bunch of C clamps to suck it to the frame and buy frame plates that come with holes

i did new wider leaf perches on the front axle for shits and giggles as well

 

[Arickvan]

in june of 2019 i picked up a little dinky center console from the petaluma swap meet that wedged nicely in between the front seat and ended up helped me out way down the road

i dont know if i mentioned it earlier but i cut a hole in the rear floor so i could raise the shock hoop up and cram some 14" shocks back there (not advised) and all i had was the "bird cage" to keep shit from falling on it, well i upgraded that to the shark cage finally

stole... i mean borrowed a big ol plate of aluminum to make and ice chest rack out of a couple years back and finally built some legs for it, i left it loose so its easy to take in and out and i use it as a little camping table sometimes on the trail

welded in a bunch of tie down points in the back to help strap down the ice chests up on the rack and for a tailgate net since i still dont have a tailgate at this point

i ended up adding a couple on shock tabs onto the shark cage for tie downs too

 

[Etyler2]

New practical tailgate. It’s now down on the bumper, just outside the body floor sheet metal on hinges made from tabs.

 

[Arickvan]

the 4runner always wheeled good, i bought it with all the right stuff for wheeling, it was just parts at the end of there life and little creature comfort stuff


oh ya when i did the frame plates ^^^ i had to put new front leafs on, the olds ones were just all "W"'d out

i went with rancho 44044 leafs, i wanted to go skys offroad 3f's but they werent making them at the time (theyre back in production now)

so now its november of 2019 and i am sick and tired of all the rhino liner thats all over this thing!

its ridiculous and i hate it, its falling apart, and impossible to clean!

i can spray it, scrub it, bleach it, doesnt matter always looks dirty, so i finally say fuck it and rip it all out

now ive got it out and i start picking away at the original sound deading stuff and say fuck it to that too

i can smell my shoes melting when i wheel in the summer so i pick up some kill matt which i thought was going to be way different but its not

its just bituthane like the original stuff is, but whatever im here now lets do it

 

[Arickvan]

New practical tailgate. It’s now down on the bumper, just outside the body floor sheet metal on hinges made from tabs.

oh shit thats pretty cool

i actually ended up picking up a tailgate this year

 

[Arickvan]

dry ice is the fawking shit for getting the old sound deadening stuff up by the way

i tried a hammer and chisel for like an hour and thats not fun, and you end up fawking up the sheetmetal

 

[Arickvan]

rolled on the kill matt and then decided to tackle the spaghetti wiring that the original owner had, and that i had slowly added to for a couple years

electrical stuff is not my deal so to me this was a huge improvement, hell i even got different color wires not just red and black

this is late jan 2020

 

[Arickvan]

 

[Arickvan]

at this point its march of 2020............ im sitting at home and have alot of time on my hands

i picked up a rubber flooring kit like 3 year earlier and it sat in a shed that whole time, finally opened the box and tried to install it, but it had folds where i didnt need them and where i needed a fold it wasnt

it was just a pain, tried letting it sit in the sun to relax but that didnt help, tried a heat gun, tried throwing weights on it in the 4runner, no-go

so i picked up some rubber trailer flooring and that stuff worked good

picked up some fo-leather vinyl for the panels and now i need a fur coat and a pimp cane when i drive this thing

 

[Arickvan]

i had so much time on my hand i even did the dinky center console