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4th Gen 4runner strength considerations

A good friend of mine has a total chaos LT 4th gen, fenders and all. The amount of daily driving he did with it dropped like crazy after it was done. Offroad it is amazing but freeways and parking lots are just not fun. He has done some pretty serious trails with it and has not broken anything that I can recall.


Unrelated to LT. strength wise, if its pre 2009 you'll want to plate the passenger side front diff bracket. When they fail you lose your oil pan. You can google "kurtfab passenger diff bracket" (that was me years ago).

Also Toyota had an issue with the crush sleeve in the rear and I saw a handful of rear diffs grenade, not sure what year this got corrected. Regear with a solid spacer when you can.

Skinny 35s are probably your best bet otherwise you'll have to add a decent amount of lift in the rear to clear. Which then leads to panhard correction brackets (eimkeith) and adjustable links etc..
 
DMG said:
One of the things the uniball UCAs from TC, Camburg, etc do is add caster.
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Which also makes fire wall clearance worse since it does this by pushing the upper pivot toward the firewall.

That was one of reasons I chose spc upper arms since they have tons of adjustment.
 
All this talk about body mounts and squeaking a slight amount of clearance with cam bolts makes me laugh. This is the state of where we are at in life 🤣
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Which also makes fire wall clearance worse since it does this by pushing the upper pivot toward the firewall.

That was one of reasons I chose spc upper arms since they have tons of adjustment.
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Good thing you’re going to address wheelbase and caster in your +2 kit. :flipoff2:
 
Skinny said:
All this talk about body mounts and squeaking a slight amount of clearance with cam bolts makes me laugh. This is the state of where we are at in life 🤣
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Hey, I have 2 other wrinkled up rigs with real axles and leafs, I can have one bitch ride OK :flipoff2:

One day I'd like to tub the firewall, do what rockota is too skurred to do with the +2" wms and run 37-38s. Although then I don't know what to do with the little 7.5" diff and 27 spline intermediate shaft. :homer:
 
Haha that's fair.

Turn it into another wrinkled up trail rig and buy another DD. It's the circle of life.
 
Is the 2nd Gen Tacoma frame similar to the 4th gen 4Runner? Looking at some build threads, mainly steering and ideas for link placement, but not much for the 4Runner
 
Update:

Went pretty basic and straight Tacoma World here on this one, needed struts anyway so did the 5100s front and rear with what is supposed to be a 1.5 inch lift. Was very obvious pulling it apart this was all OE/factory stuff. I don't think anything has ever been done in this suspension, even like away bar links and all.

Hoping it will settle because based on original measurements it was 4+ inches in the front.

Had ordered uca but after a month of not coming in and supposed to be a small lift opted with not, but may still need to replace them for caster.

Plans next are to put some sliders, possibly lock the rear, and some armor. Long term depending on if we move, will be either SAS or mid travel (better shock set up, use of better UCAs) and leaving it as DD duties for a different project for a bigger project.

And that goofy ass Bilstein sticker will be removed. What the fuck was I thinking for putting it there:homer:
 

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My opinion would be to stick with your game plan. Tires, sliders, maybe rear locker. Then don't touch it.

Drive it, wheel it, enjoy it.

I think once you get into the LT or SAS territory you are commiting a fuck ton of money. Probably better off finding a better platform or buy someone else's loss.

Honestly if you were going that road I'd just get a Tahoe. LS power already. Sling Superduty axles under with a suspension of your choice. Build done without the Toyota tax.

For you chumps that are like, 4Runner isn't a fullsize...that POS is fat in all the wrong areas and is skinny in all the wrong areas. Mostly it changes low like a minivan and has terrible interior dimensions.

Plus by the time you get an SAS or LT it's already near or at full width territory.
 
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Skinny said:
My opinion would be to stick with your game plan. Tires, sliders, maybe rear locker. Then don't touch it.

Drive it, wheel it, enjoy it.

I think once you get into the LT or SAS territory you are commiting a fuck ton of money. Probably better off finding a better platform or buy someone else's loss.

Honestly if you were going that road I'd just get a Tahoe. LS power already. Sling Superduty axles under with a suspension of your choice. Build done without the Toyota tax.
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I've been thinking about an older F150 (miller lightning style) welfare duty or Silverado, very close to what you have described. Power, overall easier to get shot swapped into it, and leaving this for a bunny slopes and family explorer type driver.
 
Personally that is what I would do. Older platform equals less give a fucks. Definitely a much simpler vehicle, already has the power you need.

Hell you could probably build an entire Tahoe including the cost of the truck for what just the mods would cost on a 4Runner.
 
Just for the sake of fun/games..

I've been driving/wheeling an 07 FJ for a bit. While my 2nd gen 4runner on 37s was getting R&R'd the FJ went on a quite a few pretty spicy rides in KY/TN.

Pondering a setup for 35s I wondered about shoving the LCA forward similar to:
JD Fab LCA Mounts

Gets clearance at firewall, adds caster, and beefs up the wimpy LCA mounts. Factory WMS is 63" so decently wide already. Tierods/rack are still undersized but there are some sleeves you can add on tierods so you definitely bust the rack :laughing: The Northwest Fab chain drive doubler is also an interesting to stay newer toy based. CVs are fixable staying OEM or go RCV, steering rack could be upgraded with 200 series parts if you go wider like on RCLT and the HP clamshell diff seems to hold 37s decently.

If RCLT wasn't such a $$$$ circle jerk it'd probably be more tempting for the actual offroad crowd. Sub $9K buys alot of D60 parts or a whole cheap trail rig.

All that to say either stay 35s max on IFS and jump to solid axle for 37s up. I've yet to see a low lift solid axle 4th gen/FJ on 37s. I've got Tons sitting waiting for it to not be a DD.. :grinpimp: mainly due to the weight, after armor/bumpers its probably sitting at 5k-5,200lbs with spares/tools. The 1GR/6spd combo is great.. for a rig weighing 1k less.

Good crawler.. no. Good full body trail rig.. yeah kinda.
 
I think the root cause of the problem is these trucks are pretty bloated stock and have car engines. Hence why i think the last good Toyota platform was the 1st Gen Tundra. Great V8, perfect width for tons.

My S10 on 60s, 35s on steelies, and a 5.7 with a quarter million miles drives better then a stock anything Taco or 4Runner.

That shitty 4L60 knows what gear to go on and the worn 5.7 makes more torque off idle then any Toyota V6 peak. Sorry what your graph says. They fucking suck end of story.

Sure it may not ride as good. I'll compromise 😆

With most of these platforms you either stay near stock or break the torch out and kiss goodbye all the shit that sucks. Not much in between unfortunately.
 
cchambers13 said:
Just for the sake of fun/games..

I've been driving/wheeling an 07 FJ for a bit. While my 2nd gen 4runner on 37s was getting R&R'd the FJ went on a quite a few pretty spicy rides in KY/TN.

Pondering a setup for 35s I wondered about shoving the LCA forward similar to:
JD Fab LCA Mounts

Gets clearance at firewall, adds caster, and beefs up the wimpy LCA mounts. Factory WMS is 63" so decently wide already. Tierods/rack are still undersized but there are some sleeves you can add on tierods so you definitely bust the rack :laughing: The Northwest Fab chain drive doubler is also an interesting to stay newer toy based. CVs are fixable staying OEM or go RCV, steering rack could be upgraded with 200 series parts if you go wider like on RCLT and the HP clamshell diff seems to hold 37s decently.

If RCLT wasn't such a $$$$ circle jerk it'd probably be more tempting for the actual offroad crowd. Sub $9K buys alot of D60 parts or a whole cheap trail rig.

All that to say either stay 35s max on IFS and jump to solid axle for 37s up. I've yet to see a low lift solid axle 4th gen/FJ on 37s. I've got Tons sitting waiting for it to not be a DD.. :grinpimp: mainly due to the weight, after armor/bumpers its probably sitting at 5k-5,200lbs with spares/tools. The 1GR/6spd combo is great.. for a rig weighing 1k less.

Good crawler.. no. Good full body trail rig.. yeah kinda.
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As far as CVs, JDFab has the 934s that seem to hold up well, several guys running 37s on them with no issues. But it's stress on other stuff. For a solid LT set up, with the 934s, looking at the $8-10K range, for just the front, and it's pretty fucking cool, for IFS.

Like you said, it's a lot of D60 parts. Like Skinny said, could buy and build a complete rig depending on what the set up is.

I'm pretty much over the building this into something crazy, it's a solid DD and does most of what I need it to, and a few more things to do will be overall solid for the basics (TW wheeling at most, Uwharrie, beach and mountain trips).
 
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