First Generation Toyota 4Runner Turbo

Wrapping up the front steering

2012-01-19T16:21:00.000-08:00

As a brief reminder, a while ago I went 4-wheeling in an automated car wash. It turned out the inner tie rod on the driver's side was completely wasted, allowing for some incredible toe-in under some conditions.

It had just been aligned no less than 2 weeks before that, so I was pretty upset since we had been jumping the truck across water bars on our last offroad trip (best distance - 22' from takeoff to landing - we measured in the wet dirt. Best height - only a couple feet, these 5100s are just 2" shocks after all AND we don't have a cage yet!!).

I was thinking stock replacements. Then it hit me - I'm only throwing more go-fast hardware at this truck, take the $300+ and put it towards some real good offroad parts.

Some guy had a used TC heim kit for sale, but didn't have the reinforcing tabs to go with. Since this was going to be on here long term, I wasn't a fan of used parts either.

ORW had my TC kit to me 2 weeks after ordering it. I got some other toys while I was at it (more when I get those installed!).

Two weekends ago I planned to do my Total Chaos heim steering upgrade.

I *strongly* recommend a tie-rod puller. I have always used pickle forks, and since I didn't care about the boots on the old tie-rods, got to town on it. No way, not even close. With the tie rod puller, it took 3-4 turns to get them to pop out, and I was putting some muscle into them. The were not willing to come out, and when they did, it was with a "pang!!" as they released.

I got to the point of installing the new parts, then realized my 5/8 drill bit was not in its home. By then, everyone in a 20 mile radius who had a 5/8" drill bit was closed, and everyone else only had up to 1/2". Sure, I could use my 5/8" mill bit... except I haven't replaced my mill yet... D'oh! I wasn't willing to do an hour round-trip for a drill bit at 8pm at night.

That left my truck looking like this.

This weekend was it!

Then, Friday night at 10:30p, I learned we had some critical work activities starting at 8AM on Saturday. OK

So Sunday... Err, no, 6pm Saturday saw us going into Sunday.

So Monday, which is a holiday for us...

I installed my TC idler arm. Man that's a nice piece.

I did have to grind one weld away from a bolt hole (bottom hole on the arm in this shot), but I sent pics to TC and they're going to check their other arms. Mad Props to the TC guys. They are very nice over there and assumed I DID have a problem, not that I was mistaken. Usually the guy on the other end tries to explain to you in simple terms that you're an idiot, and finally recants after getting the pics. Probably because most of the time, that's the case. :lof:

I used to sell computers. I had more than one angry customer call me to complain about the POS I had just sold them not working. Since we burned them all in, we knew that they didn't often die on the drive to their house.

Me: Sir/Ma'am - (after thanking them for calling, yada, yada) This is going to sound really basic, but I need your help to figure out the problem and to be my hands and eyes. Can you grab the power cord where it plugs into your computer and follow it back to where it's plugged into the wall
S/M: What kind of idiot do you think I am? Of course I plugged it in!
Me: Absolutely, this is rarely the issue, but my boss makes me ask all these questions. Can you help me out and just check? It'll be real quick and we can move onto the next step right away.
S/M: [grudgingly] Ok. [pause] I'll call you back (no further calls)
I never mentioned *I* was the boss. :)

Then it was onto the heim tie rods

I didn't weld the braces on yet (makes the arm-side double-shear) as my welder is all the way in the back of the garage and I wasn't pulling the arms off and certainly didn't have the right extension cord to do it in the driveway. My garage is as far away from the breaker box as it can be and the wiring used is borderline for my power-tools. For heavy welding work, I usually take the welder to the other side of the house and do my welding there, with much better results.

The install is pretty straight-forward if you have a 5/8 drill bit. Harbor Freight had one since mine went the way of loaned out tools. LOL

Here's the beef installed (yes I also didn't have any black paint. Sigh.)

No more worries about my steering doing bad things on landings OR in carwashes! ;-)

Next up, more work on the rear!

Eric D
87 4Runner Turbo!

Aluminess beef - more details of the bumper!

2011-12-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

Tell Aluminess "Eric D with the 4Runner" sent you and they'll knock $50 off your bumper or shipping (any bumper they make, not just 4Runner bumpers).

I've had a few requests for some more detailed shots of the bumper, so here they are!

One of the interesting things about the SmittyBilt is how wiggly it was. It wasn't too bad offroad (not annoying, thank goodness!), but you could grab it and wiggle it easily. It flexed a lot when using it as a tow point for a tow strap (I'd loop a strap around a frame horn on either side since I'd replaced my tow hook with a bracket for my tow bar). The top two mounts of the SmittyBilt go on top of the rubber body mounts for the radiator core support (see pics below). I know you can get winch mount plates for the style SmittyBilt bumper I had, but have to wonder what other brackets come with it to tie it in more firmly.

One of the things I like about the Aluminess bumper is that the winch area is fully enclosed and lockable. Or you can leave it unlocked.

The fairlead hole even comes with a powder-coated cover plate in case I'd like to convert it to just storage some day.

The vents do a great job getting air into the winch so things don't rust, plus the 4Runner needs them since the bumper and AC condenser do hang down lower than the grille. A lot lower.

It's easy to remove the rubber cover and unlock the winch cover. There's a trick to locking it - don't push down on the button (silver circle) otherwise you just unlock it and have to scratch your head a while wondering why it's not closing.

Inside the winch compartment is a lot more beef. Each side has 3 bolts holding the bumper on, and check out that clevis mount. The clevis has a straight pull to the mounting. Less twist on the frame or mounts. Check out those welds. I wish I could weld aluminum that pretty!

Three beefy bolts on each side bolt into the front of the frame. My truck has a tow bar which reuses the tow hook frame holes, they're still on there.

This is the top mount I'd mentioned earlier, where the SmittyBilt mounted. This is shot between the bumper and the grille. Note that the SmittyBilt didn't have any other top mounts, hence the wiggling. I thought it was a nice touch for the Aluminess guys to tie it back into here, on top of the 3 bolts above.

Here's an underside shot of the same mount.

Aluminess - purveyors of fine aluminum adventure bumpers!

2011-12-05T16:33:00.000-08:00

Tell Aluminess "Eric D with the 4Runner" sent you and they'll knock $50 off your bumper or shipping (any bumper they make, not just 4Runner bumpers).

I've long wanted an adventure-style front bumper, for every truck I've owned (my Blazer, the Cherokee, my wife's Yukon XL...). However, all the solutions out there I've looked at are steel, which is nice - but too heavy.

I first found Aluminess in Toyota Owner where they built a front bumper for an FJ (great mag, you should get it!). Unfortunately, they didn't have a bumper for a 1st Gen 4Runner. Then I learned they were a meager 20 miles or so from my house!

Read on for the story of how a new bumper gets fabricated.

Day 1
I initially spoke with Kenny Gorham about the overall process. A new bumper style means fabrication, test fittings, adjustments, more test fittings, and, finally, installation! I'd have to give up a couple of afternoons, but then I'd have a smashing front bumper.

I showed up at 1PM for my appointment. On my tour through their shop, the first thing I was looking for was organization, then product weld and fit/finish quality. Their shop is well organized with all kinds of finished bumpers, roof racks, rear bumpers, and the parts that make them up stacked up waiting for welders. The welders have curtained-off areas behind making it easy enough to walk through the shop without incurring eye burns. The finished parts looked fantastic. I started feeling pretty good.

Then we got to a newly finished FJ bumper in bare aluminum. I missed a picture, but it was on its way powder coat. They asked if I wanted to pick it up. I did, and about fell over. There was NO WAY this bumper was that light. I easily one-handed it.

Next thing you know, I've pulled my truck into the shop and they've pulled my Smittybilt tube bumper and have started measuring, pulling out some stock pieces seeing how they'd fit, then asking me all kinds of questions about what I wanted, writing down the answers. I loved the process.

This took about 3-4 hours, which was fine by me. I'm blessed to have a job where I can work remotely and the Aluminess team let me crash in their conference rooms where I could plug in my laptop and take/initiate calls. They generously offered me their network, but I already have all the toys to work remotely. I'd take the occasional break and drift be to see what was up, answer a few questions, then back to work! Whaa-cha!

Kenny got measurements from Warn's site for this part of the process, but did ask that I bring my winch the following time.

We talked about what to do about the blinkers because the orange things next to the headlights are just side markers. You can see the factory blinkers attached to the SmittyBilt (the white things poking out the back), etc.

They bolted my bumper back up and sent me on my way, setting my expectation that this part would take a few weeks. I really wasn't in a rush, which I told him. I left at the end of the day feeling pretty good.

Day 2

A few weeks later, as promised, I got a call from Kenny - "Hey Eric, when's a good time to come test fit the bumper? We'll need about 1/2 a day, and please bring your winch."

When I got to the shop, I saw this beauty laying on the ground. Right there and then I started thinking clear powercoat would look pretty cool.

Check out the attention to detail with the scallops to fit around the fenders. Man, I was pretty pleased.

I'd brought my winch as requested, separating it from the Warn hitch-mount cradle it had lived in the past 8 year. It's an original XD9000i (the slow one), but it's been a great winch. I'm ultra-careful with the cable, so there are very few broken strands and it's in great shape, even though it's pulled some serious loads.

One of the important questions was what to do with the brushguard. I really liked that I could just barely see the top edge of my Smittybilt over the hood, making it easy to know when I was going to ram into the parking garage wall or start pushing the car parked in front of me backwards. I also wanted it to be as strong as possible in case I did happen to catch a cow, horse, deer, or 4-wheeled critter out in the wild.

I wanted the bars closer to the outside of the bumper, but one of the engineers, correctly, pointed out that would cause night blindness as the headlight reflected off of it. Their attention to detail was awesome.

My next suggestion had him scratching his head. He wanted to be able to see the Toyota logo from the front. What if... I know beauty when I see it, but I'm not very good at describing what I think is good looking.

Pretty soon, we had a setup that met real-world needs, but looked good too. They mocked up a piece of tubing to show me what the center section might look like.

More measurements and mounting planning. .

The guys were great and I left that day knowing we'd end up with an awesome solution.

Day 3
A short time later, I get another call from Kenny. Time to spend another afternoon with him and his team!

When I showed up at the shop, this is what greeted me. How cool is this?! The brushguard looked even better than I had imagined.

It looks heavy, don't it? It ends up that it's very close to or lighter than the Smittybilt that came off the truck. How cool is that?

Getting it onto the truck was very quick, but they had some finish work to do on the mounting.

Not too much longer and here's what it looked like mounted. Hey! That's way too clean!

As you can see, that fairlead has earned its keep.

Here's are Before and After shots

I just happened to go to Costco when this guy was parked in the lot. Unfortunately, the car wash was closed by the time I made it here so my truck's still muddy.

Same year, same color, same stickers, same Smittybilt options! His was clean. Which truck would you rather have?!

Here's my truck in action at the JustRuns 12/3/11 Corral Canyon run.

If you look carefully, you can see just above the passenger side marker light (next to headlight), some mud is missing. That was a big branch that would have reshaped the hood, and possibly the light. The bumper is already earning it's keep.
O

Side view

Smog time again? Already?!? Let's play in the mud on the way home!!

2011-11-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

I'm always amazed at how quickly time flies when you have a busy life and a project like this truck.

I'm relatively new to the ways of California, so I took my truck down to the place we use for all of our emissions.

The scores were outstanding. And it FAILED due to visual.

1. Timing was advanced 5 degrees more than the factory settings (duh)
2. I had left the boost controller inline, even though boost is only 6.5psi max (factory) with it. Yes, new project.
3. It was missing an important smog valve, and the bracket.

After rectifying those things, I was good to go.

This morning, AAA made the DMV trip easy, literally 3 minutes in and out.

We spent the day running around and playing in the mud left behind from yesterday's rain storm. I did my best to drown it, but it wouldn't do it. Awesome!

Here's the aftermath, including some relatively clean puddles cleaning the goopy mud off. The front tires sticking outside the fenders means you want to keep the windows UP! LOL

Fuel gauge is good. A working one is better!

2011-09-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

My fuel gauge has, for some time, read empty after about 100 miles.

Turns out it's pretty common due to the design. Pics below are not of mine, mine has no rust, being a California truck.

I was bummed, however, that there were no parts fiches available online. Turns out that may be 100% due to Toyota limiting access. How unfortunate that's their position. See the December 2009 note here

The resistor wire wears through after years of wear as gas sloshes around in the tank:

I thought I could fix mine. Bzzzzt. It was even more hacked than the one above.

Looks like I need a part # 83320‑39735, which appears to be dealer-only. Since it's Sunday, looks like I'll be leaving the truck sitting until the part comes in since I'd rather not R&R the tank again.

83320	GAGE ASSY, FUEL SENDER
83320‑39735	RN61..SRT, FUEL TANK:65LITER	1	$97.85

http://www.toyodiy.com/parts/p_U_198610_TOYOTA_4RUNNER+TRUCK_RN61LG-PGZA_8401.6.html?hl=83320

If this part is not available (bites knuckles), I may have to figure one out.
The resistance of a Toyota sending unit is 3 plus 2 or minus 3 ohms (full) to 110 plus or minus 7.7 ohms (empty). Basically any ohmic readings from 0 to 117.7 ohms (full to empty) on a Toyota sending unit are within spec.

She runs like the wind again!

2011-08-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

So it did in fact turn out to be a TPS.

When I searched for "22re surge" or "22rte surge" I didn't get hits with answers. So many of the page hits I was getting all talked about a funky idle, which I was not seeing.

So I changed by search to "22re surge -idle"
Red herring.
I picked 22RE instead of 22RTE since I figured the turbo wasn't relevant. This part was correct.

Turns out "22re miss" or "22re hesitation" worked much better. I finally found a page which both seemed to describe my issue AND had an answer - TPS.

I used 4Crawler's excellent site to troubleshoot the issue:
Toyota 2.4L/3.0L Throttle Position Sensor

Turns out this was the TPS. Measurements between IDL and E2 showed it had a problem, as did the ECU, throwing a code 7. And, because it's a turbo, it also blinked 14 times, which is very different than how it provides other codes (1 flash, pause, 4 flash is what I would have expected). Blinking 14 times is... Turbo overboost. Yep, I know all about that. >:)

Some quick comparisons of how it runs with the new TPS compared to what it's been doing for the past few weeks:
1. It's back to being as powerful as I expected
2. It goes up steep hills in OD again, doesn't need me to shift it down to 3rd.
3. The sproingy shifts into 3 and OD went away.
4. Gas MPG is... well, that verdict is out still. My last tank was 13.5, so I'm REALLY hoping to see 17 on this one. Or more is good!

Adjusting or Replacing the TPS

Carquest in town both stocked the part, and also had a great price.

It was 99 degrees out here today, but also quite humid. It doesn't help that I have a pin backing out of my ankle. I spent most of the day on the couch with my foot up. It's not unmanageable, but I do feel it. Surgery is Wednesday.

You get one guess which pin (aka screw) it is. :)

Since it's hot and I'm not into moving a lot at the moment anyways, I didn't get to working on it until after dark. This means no pictures.

I would have gotten to it sooner, but I had to run and get the part and close out a few honey-do's.

4Crawler's site above has some pics, but let me add some additional detail.

Last Christmas, the kids and wife got me a great LED headlight from Brookstone. I usually think they're overpriced on most of their stuff, but this headlamp has been awesome. It angles from straight ahead to 90 degrees down with positive detents, has a bright, low-beam, and SOS setting, and seems to run just about forever on 3 AAA batteries. I totally dig it. It sure beats sitting there with a AA (or D!) Mag Lite in your mouth! LOL

The TPS uses 2 philips screws to hold it on. There is no way you're going to get to the bottom one without some work. 4Crawler sells allen screws, in case you want to use a wobble allen to adjust it in the future. I don't expect to touch mine again until it goes bad.

To get to the bottom screw, you have to remove the throttle-body. It's pretty straightforward - 3 vacuum hoses, move the temperature sensor wire out of the way (remove it, don't forget to reinstall it!)

If you have a turbo using the stock metal pipe like I do (I don't have a CT20, instead my metal pipe was extended to fit the TEC turbo by welding in a new section), pull the intake-tube boot at the throttle body. I assume for normally aspirated trucks there's enough flex, but it most likely will be easier to just pull the intake boot too.

The trick with the boot on a turbo is to lubricate the metal pipe behind the boot, loosen the boot, and twist/slide it up the tube, rotate it about 180 degrees (throttle-body opening towards the front of the truck), then take it off.

Pull the accelerator cables (pedal, cruise) out of the throttle-cam.

There are 3 12mm bolts holding the throttle body on. The lower-left is a stud with a 12mm nut on it. Break all 4 loose and given them a little slack, then pull the 3 bolts out.

Remove the nut, and the 4th vacuum line under the TPS.

You can now loosen the two TPS screws if you're just doing an adjustment. Or, if you're replacing it, you're good to go.

Good luck!

She starts hesitating and hitching/surging

2011-08-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

At the very same time I installed the gears, the 4Runner started hesitating when accelerating. It was like I was pushing and fully releasing the gas pedal, but very quickly.

It was also running less well than before the gears. Now when a truck with 4.10s and 33s seems more powerful than after installing 4.88s...

There were other indicators something was wrong:

The 4Runner would not go as fast down the highway as before the gears/lift. I expect this to some degree since there's a lot more air being pushed with the lift. But the truck feels like it's driving into a headwind as speeds go up, and 75-80 is harder than it should be. This thing ripped with 225/75R15s and 4.10s, which calculate out to the same as 33s and 4.88s - something's up.
Further proof the 4.88s/33s are nearly the same as 225/15s - the speedo was accurate with the 225/4.10 combo, way low with 4.10/33s, and is now about 2mph high at 70 with 4.88s/33s. If anything, I now have a slight advantage.
It doesn't go up hills any faster or more easily than with the 4.10s
I could go up some hills at about 60 in Drive with 4.10s. The nearly 20% jump from 4.10s to 4.88s should mean I can run the same hill in OD (20% steeper than D). No way right now.

At first the hesitation was was only present when it was cold, first thing in the morning. But it gradually started to do it when it was warm as well.

Since it's easy, I decided to check for codes. The word is that, even if the Check Engine light is not on, you may have codes.

I'd never checked codes on this truck, so it was a learning process. Here's a couple tidbits I learned. :)

22RE's generate codes as Flash, flash, flash...pause...flash...pause,pause,pause...repeats (or next code).
It turns out 22RTE's generate some additional codes. A 14 is 14 flashes, not Flash...pause...flash,flash,flash,flash... it threw me for a second when it got past 9, then kept going... LOL

A quick check of the ECU codes showed two in memory.

14 - Turbo overpressure (hit the fuel cut - and it had with the old cam after the dyno shop finished adjusting it)
7 - TPS no bueno

I'll doublecheck it with an ohmeter tomorrow since they're not cheap.

Here's LC Engineering's thorough setup/verify/adjust procedure - you CANNOT just remove the old one and install the new one.

I'm checking on the right place to get a TPS now. I prefer OE parts, but they're sooo much more expensive. Time to ask my hookup at the local dealer if he can really hook me up! :)

I'll be surprised if it fixes the power issue, but we'll see.

I think it's amazing that these issues started at the same time I added gears. LOL

I'll report back on the outcome!

Before and after picture montage

2011-08-15T21:15:00.000-07:00

So... was all that work worth it?

When I bought it

After new tires

After the lift

Wheel stuffing
Before

After (doesn't stuff up as far)

How's the overall articulation? Remember the Before has the swaybar connected, the After does not.
Before

After

I think this shot tells a lot about what's going on with the suspension at the front and back.
The front goes up just as much - all the way to the bumpstops. One of the benefits of a long-travel kit.
The rear drops just as far as it did before - it's being limited by the shackle length. I need to extend the rear shackle to take full advantage of the rear lift.

Before

After

Front flex
Before (swaybar is installed)

After (no swaybar, long travel kit)

Rear flex
Before

After (stretches even more!)

The rear moves up in the world, joins the front and we're done!

2011-08-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have to say the front of the truck was looking pretty good. I was eager to see what the rear would look like with a 'Zuk rear coil mod.

The driver's side took an hour to sort out as I wanted to be careful. The passenger side took about 25 minutes.

I was going to swap the rear brake line for a longer one, but it proved unnecessary AND I was running up against our deadline to get to the drag strip.

It's only 1/8 mile, but we got to watch some fast vehicles. Including this cool diesel which was chewing up and spitting out some street cars. High 90s and mid 7-seconds. Check out this video (sorry not inlined)

One of the things I wanted to change from the normal mod was to put something between the frame and the spring to manage any wear.

I ran out to a "local" steel place (is 32 miles away local?). They had some neat stuff, but one of the things I found was this base-plate. I cut the sides off so it would fit between the uprights of the bump stop.

Some of you will remember I used 14" 125# springs.

I started with the driver's side because it doesn't have all those scary brake lines, gas tank, etc. behind it. I figured do the easy side first.

Once I got the bumpstop cut off, I found I needed to trim the front upright a bit more, then bend them out with my very large Crescent wrench and my 3' cheater pipe. I bent them out so I could barely screw the spring in about 1/2-way. I wanted them to stay tight. They're a bit too tight, you can hear the springs sproinging (sliding in and out) when it stretches out and flexes. It turns out it's the coil below the bracket binding on the corner. I'll chamfer them.

The passenger side went MUCH faster. Be VERY careful around those brake lines with your Sawzall.
Here's how much I cut off the frame bump-stop thingy. Yes, it's a terrible picture (and backwards, compare to the pic above).

I removed the rear shock to allow the axle to drop as far as it can. Once I got it cut off, I inserted my bottle jack between the frame and the leaf. You can see my mondo-Crescent wrench. I still needed 3' of cheater pipe on it to bend the brackets without flame. Start in the middle so you give them a slight-round profile to help capture the coil spring.

BE CAREFUL when jacking. Only jack enough that the leaf touches the leaf-spring bracket pin. Any more and I could bend the leave spring.

Here's the trick to do this quickly. Get a spring compressor.

Barring a spring compressor being available, you COULD use the method below, but when you take off a finger or worse, just remember that I am NOT recommending it and that you would be stupid to do it this way. So don't do it. Like the Mythbusters say - don't try this at home!

Insert the top of the spring in the bumpstop perch. It's a tight fit and required that I screw it in, but that's how I wanted it.

I needed a 2-hook tie-down and a ratchet strap in good condition.
Use the tie-down to the leaf-spring bracket to hold the spring upright and keep it from bowing out when the ratchet strap is tightened.
I looped the ratchet strap 3 or 4 coils down from the top of the spring and around the front of the leaf spring. I checked for sharp edges, then starrted ratcheting it down, cranking on the tie down as needed to keep it coming down straight.

Just get it close. There's way too much pressure required to make it short enough to get under the bumpstop sides. Then I slowly popped it in place with a prybar. Notice my fingers are hardly even in the picture.

Once it's in, I DID NOT release the ratchet strap go. It will hurt.
Instead I slowly released the jack, checking the spring was going in. Then I put the jack under the axle and slowly jacked it up until the spring seated. Then I kept jacking until the straps started to loosen up. I took them off, dropped the axle to the right height and installed my new shock.

My old shocks would have worked, but longer shackles will make it drop too far. And it needs longer shackles. The current shackle sits at a light angle when it's on level ground, so it's not topped out sitting there, but it definitely needs shackles.

What's the height difference? Huge. I needed my HiLift to jack the truck up high enough to get the jack stands under the frame with the wheels off the ground. But I was able to use my floor jack under the rear pumpkin to get the truck off the jackstands.

On the passenger side, the truck sits completely level, measuring to the bottom body line (crease in the side panels)

On the driver's side, it's about 1" lower in the rear. I haven't had a chance to figure it out yet, but I'll probably get in there this afternoon and sort that out. The springs both say they're the same, that's the only thing I can think of. Especially since the fuel tank is on the passenger side (heavier).

I'm hoping it's not a spring problem. Both boxes indicate they're the same.

It also handles surprisingly well in the corners. It used to oversteer because the rear was too soft, right now it feels pretty balanced, even without a swaybar. I still need to align the tires more than by eye (it doesn't drift and the steering wheel is straight, so goodie for me!)

The front also still hits the tires at full droop, I'll probably look at that this evening. We have company coming and it's still hot out, nearly 100 today. While I grew up in S. AZ with hotter days, 100 is pretty hot out here and I'm not longer acclimatized.

Here it is after about 14 hours of work!! Look how nice it sits!

It flexes well. Yup, the driver's tire is in the air. :)

Front stretch

Plumbing and wiring the lockers, the compressor

2011-08-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

During the workweek, Andrew and I were able to plumb the air lines, route them safely, and get the compressor installed and wired up.

This section will be a victim of the camera-phone that went missing. No pictures.

The air line was pretty straightforward. TIP: Route any lines on sprung axles with the brake line.

I'd decided to mount the compressor on the passenger fenderwell, so I routed the lines there, leaving plenty of slack so I could fine-tune the routing after the compressor was installed.

The hardest part is installing the dash switches. ARB does not include instructions or templates for the switch holes, which I found surprising. I cut some holes in cardboard until I had a hole for one switch. Then I had to google around on their site to find out that when you gang the switches up, you just cut out one hole big enough for the # of switches you need.

Armed with two templates, and after some careful measurement, I decided the axle switches would go next to the clutch-cancel switch cutout. I wanted to save the cutout for my future upgrade to a 5-speed and the factory switch.

The compressor switch would go between the rear deck switch and the dash dimmer switch.

A Dremel with a cutoff wheel set to 25% speed made quick work of the big cuts without too much melting. A utility knife with a sharp blade let me finish the job. I cut the hole slightly undersized and used the utility knife to sneak up on the right height and width of the hole. The switches are nice and snug.

BTW - install the switch faceplates LAST. After EVERYTHING is done and tested. I did and boy was I glad I did!

We routed the wires through the ECU grommet in the firewall, along with every other wire we've routed into the cab from the engine bay, then across the dash. There was even a few feet left.

The dimmer switch is pretty wide behind the dash and needed to be rotated 90 degrees. Since it's clocked by a pin that goes into a hole, we had to recreate the hole. Rather than pull the lower dash panel completely out, I heated up a small screwdriver and punched the hole, careful not to go all the way through.

After that, there was a plastic brace that needed trimming to allow the compressor switch the depth it needed.

It took a few hours, but it looks really good.

While I tried to locate the dimmer wire for the dash, the only one I could find was the ground, which worked in reverse (bright dash, low power, dim dash, high power). I was hoping to dim the switches with the dimmer. It turns out they're not too bright, which is really nice. I can't stand distractions at night like bright switches.

One thing I found was that there's some kind of interlock and I can't engage the front locker by itself. I have to turn on the compressor, the rear locker, then the front locker. I'm OK with that, so I'm not going to try to figure out how to bypass that yet. Worst case, in the boonies, I just swap solenoid leads on the compressor if I want to lock the front by itself for some reason.

By Thursday, we were ready for the weekend's work on lifting the rear and clearancing the arms for the wider tires.

Sunday morning - time to do the front of the truck...

2011-08-15T20:19:00.001-07:00

This morning, here's what's left to pull off
- swaybar
- brake lines
- axle shafts (gotta pull the c-clip in the hubs)
- 2 bolts holding the 3rd member in

Oh, and putting all this stuff back on.

We're watching monster trucks on TV while we wait for it to get late enough the air tools and radio won't aggravate the neighbors. 20 more minutes.

Before I go anywhere with the truck, I need the airlines attached to make sure we keep crap out of the air line bulkhead fittings. Our earlier drive used a zip tie and a nitrile glove, but I'm not good with that as a solution for much further than the first break-in run.

All right, the Blazeland portion, and the front gears/ARB are installed as of today. More details later, but I am totally shagged. I am no longer the young pup I once was. Good thing my son helped so much. He did a LOT on truck, really helping make it come together.

With 285/75R16s on stock Toyota steelies, the Blazeland hit at full stretch. A lot. And get much worse when turned. It wouldn't take more than a few feet to carve a big gash in the sidewall.

I took a grinding wheel to the edge of the upper control arm, making it flush with the uprights that go to the lower plate on the upper control arm. Pics later. The edge of the plate is now flush with the washers of the outermost plate bolts (gold), and matches the angle to the 2 upright pieces of plate going down to the lower plate.

That keeps it from hitting the tire at full droop with them pointed straight ahead. Barely. Like maybe by 1/8"

Any turning, tho, and I won't have a sidewall as the tire gets forced into the corners of the plate (front or rear). It only takes a few degrees.

I'm really prefer not to do spacers and I'm not considering a wider offset wheel for a couple of reasons. I'd need like 2" more offset, and that's quite a bit.

Sitting on the ground at the ride height I've chosen, there's plenty of clearance. I'll be taking a look at it next weekend to see what other options I might have.

There's no way to make the stock swaybar work, so I'll have to look into other options.

No driving until it gets align, which I'll probably do after I get the rear up. Lifting the rear is my priority, I can always just put some limiting straps on it to keep the tire sidewall from getting carved.

The used torsion bars I bought had the adjusters locked on. In the background are the used Blazeland arms.

I could wiggle them, but could not hammer them off with a dead-blow or with a sledge. And since I don't have a press...
I drilled out the backs (there's a pinhole there to let air in which provided the guide)
The wet shorts, btw, is sweat and water I poured over my head. It was very hot when I did this and, now that I'm 41 with a long term desk job, I sweat very easily.

While I don't have a press, I do have gear pullers. Which is what I needed the hole for.

And the torsion bar came free! That's sand. Lots and lots of sand. The PO had not left the rubber caps on the torsion bar, and they packed up. Needless to say, I reused the caps from the old torsion bars!

Pulling the control arms and front diff in the driveway in the heat was a lot of work considering there may not be more than 30 bolts which need to be pulled.

This is what most of the front diff oil on the ground looks like. The front diff fell off the jack and flipped the oil pan upside down. It did not speed up the operation.

A little Dawn and a whole lot of scrubbing with a push broom when I was done and you can't even tell oil was spilled there. Whew!!

As I mentioned, my phone went missing with a lot of pictures. Take my word for it, it went back together that day. It was a long day, but well worth it.

When it was done, we had both sets of gears swapped out, the front lifted and new balljoints installed, but with a clearance problem at full droop with the wide tires, and the rear drooping since it was at its stock, sagged height.

That was the end of Sunday.

Time to put the lift on!

2011-08-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

The last parts I was waiting for arrived!

During the build, between weekends, my phone went missing, along with a whole lot of pictures. I'd uploaded a few to Facebook and G+, so I'll be able to reuse those here.

After all the research, I decided a Blazeland long travel kit coupled with a 'Zuk rear coil mod to the rear would provide the best bang for the buck while still meeting my design goals. I'll eventually replace the rear with leafs, and may replace the fronts with Total Chaos uniball units when I go to high-end shocks, but for the near term, this setup should let me learn more about what I do and don't like while I keep upgrading the other parts of the truck.

Here's what the Blazeland kit comes with. Used, I had less to start with, so needed a few more parts.

Front setup

I bought the Blazeland control arms and tie-rod extensions used from an inmate. It turned out they were the original style and the newer ones are set up to allow clearance for wider tires. More later.
I found the torsion bars used on Craigslist.
Balljoints were new Moog units.
Axleshafts were reman units from CarQuest. I was time-constrained or I would have bought the new ones, but they were about a week out. I'll buy one new one and carry it as a spare.
Brake lines were part of a Trail Gear lift package of brake lines - 1 rear, 2 fronts

Rear setup

14" x 125# Black Magic springs
Rear brake line
2 fence base plates from a local metal fab shop to use as upper spring mounts

At the same time, I was installing new 4.88s and ARBs to match the 33" tall TreadWrights (285/75R16). A lot of the parts came from Davez Offroad Performance. They're a small shop so their turnaround isn't overnight, but they come recommended. Additionally, his pricing was strong right out of the gate. I hate having someone throw me near MSRP, then drop their price when I tell them I've been shopping around. Just give me a fair price from the get-go.

I was feeling under the weather the Saturday I started, so I didn't get started until about 1PM with anything. SWMBO's truck needed an oil change, and I needed to mess with the pool filter. But no way I was going another weekend without at least getting the gears installed. And how much more work would a couple of control arms be, anyways?

My 11yo son, Andrew, was ready to help. He's constantly tinkering with his bicycles, moving things from one to the other, so he's always a help.

We started by fixing one of the jack stands. Its ratchet-mech shield had broken off the last time we used it. I broke out the welder, and Andrew welded the left side of the shield after I showed him how to weld the right side. It's amazing how the paint on that orange thing flamed up. :)

Since the rear diff was the easiest, we started with that.

Andrew jacked up the truck, put it on jackstands, and pulled off the rear tires while I drained the rear pumpkin and pulled the driveshaft.

The truck ate the last set of front pads I'd put on it. This usually means the rear brakes aren't doing much.

When I got the rear drums off, I found the shoes had a lot of material, but the material had a lot of heat cracking. Which was a surprise since the drums looked great and didn't have any heat marks at all, or any scoring. Cheap shoes was my best guess. I'm going to put rear discs on here as soon as I get the $$ for a full-float kit (so I can flat-tow it), but I'm a big fan of good-working brakes, so that wasn't going to do.

One surprise when removing the axles was that I had to disconnect the rear brake lines since the backing plate is sandwiched between the bearing and the flange. I'm used to Ford 9" semifloats where you go through the axle flange to remove the nuts and the backing plate is separate from the axle assembly.

For 223K miles, the gears in the rear 3rd looked great. The fluid came out in decent condition with very little metal on the drain plug. The original owner took great care of this truck. I checked the splines on the axle shafts, and they were straight and in great shape. Awesome.

The new carrier is a V6 carrier. My truck is a turbo and the 3rd casing has the same extra ribbing found on the V6 carrier. Given my build goals, having beef is part of the plan. Extra $$, but worth the peace of mind.

It was a snug fit getting the new carrier into the housing. I went slowly and easily as the last thing I wanted to do was damage the copper air line for the ARB. With some gentle persuasion and careful twisting, it snicked into place.

Air tools are a godsend when you're faced with that many nuts and bolts, and it was quickly secured. We pushed the axles back in, secured the backing plates, and attached the brake lines.

Next up was to attach the driveshaft. Err, the flange bolt pattern is bigger than my driveshaft's. Well, that's not good.

I considered swapping flanges, but really didn't want to mess with the staked pinion nut (I hate reusing those and prefer a new one), and then I figured I'd have to make sure I had the preload right, and then, and then...

While tinkering with it, I realized the driveshaft self-centers in the flange. Ooohhh... This'll be easy!

I found that I did not have the 25/64th (9.9 mm) drill bit I needed. And I needed rear brake shoes anyways.

Since SWMBO and the girls were out shopping/working with the oldest's car, we rolled the rear tires into the garage, tossed the tools in there too, and headed for town in SWMBO's truck. Since it's nice, we cleaned up. A bit. Sorta.

True Value had a nice and expensive drill bit.

Carquest had some cheap shoes that I liked.

I already had plenty of brake fluid and brake cleaner

We were missing something... Ah, lunch! We didn't have lunch!

By now it was about 4 and Andrew had been doing a great job so I decided to treat him, so off we went.

When we got back, we both crawled under. While I worked on the flange, Andrew filled the rear diff.

I decided to offset the new holes 45 degrees from the existing holes in the flange, so I marked the first hole and drilled it. The driveshaft seated nice and snug in the center hole of the flange, enough I'd have to work it out.

Even so, I ran a bolt into the first hole, marked the second hole (the one directly across from the bolt), spun the shaft back over to the bolt, and pulled the bolt. Just as I set the bolt and air-ratchet on the ground, "CLONG!" went the driveshaft as it came loose from the flange and dropped on my right eyebrow. Oww. I squirmed for a few seconds, then started cracking up. Andrew generously didn't start laughing until he was able to determine which way I was going with it. At nearly midnight, I had a nice goose-egg.

I would not be making this mistake again... LOL And, sure enough, the driveshaft would not longer sit in the flange by itself. Three more holes and the rear driveshaft was on. Sweet!

Next, we swapped on the new brake shoes. Andrew has only experienced disc brakes, so this was his first set of drum brakes. He had to put his back into it to get the spring retainers off the locating pins.

I'd forgotten how intricate Toy rear drums were with the horseshoe clip for the eBrake lever, and the way they route their springs makes it so my brake spring tools don't work. Good thing I have a great set of pliers for that with tiny teeth that don't hurt the springs.

When we moved to the driver's side, we found the backing plate adjustment hole plug was missing, which had allowed more sand than desired into that side. That sand found its way in there from our trip through Pinyon Canyon on a rainy day, where we splashed through miles of wet sand wash. I wish I had better pics, that trip was AWESOME. I'm totally doing that again next wet season. This time, no strap will be required... for us!

Next up was bleeding the brakes.

I was surprised, and a bit shocked, to find the master cylinder nearly empty. I'd seen the right rear dripping the whole time into the oil pan, but I really expected that the master cylinder would be separated between front and rear. I'll need to check to see what happens when one end leaks. All my Chevy's have seperate master cylinder wells so if one end leaks, the other end is unaffected.

Once the brakes were bled until the fluid ran clear, it was time to throw on the rear tires, drop it, and go.

"go" included cleaning up the tools and putting them back in the garage for a bit. Most of the meta shavings were on a couple of paper towels I'd put down, making it easy to toss them in the garbage.

With 4.88s and 285/75R16s (33s), the GPS told us the speedo was once again accurate. A nice side-effect was that OD was once again useful at speeds under 80mph.

No whines. No vibrations. No grinding feelings. No leaks. Success!!

To add a little icing, the brakes actually worked well again!

We racked up about 40 gentle miles, then ran back home as the sun was setting and the colors were dulling.

The next step was to clean up the remaining metal shavings. Out came the shop vac since a broom is not always effective with those little metal bits. As it was, I ended up with one in my heel (I often work barefoot). It came out at the end of the evening with a very minor assist from a needle.

Since it was going to be best hold the truck up by the frame, out came the big jackstands. I have a pair of these I use every once in a blue moon. I hate to store them in between, but have zero complaints when I need them.

Andrew jacked it up again and we set the stands on the frame. Andrew took off the front wheels while I laid out all the parts to make sure nothing was missing.

Hmmm... that was a lot of parts.

First up was relaxing the torsion bars. Passenger side, break the jam nut loose, add some impact wrench (Shhhh! No, you're not supposed to!), and brrrrrrr-ziiiiiii, it was off.

The driver's side has the cat running by it. It was still a mite warm, but not super-hot by now. The cat on this thing cools off pretty well. The muffler stays hot however. The shop who'd rebuilt the motor had, for some reason I'm still not sure of, removed the muffler heat shield when doing the 2.5" exhaust, causing the rear driver's seat to melt. Keep those shields up, Scotty!

The cat was still hot enough that if I kept my hand on it for more than a couple of seconds, it was time to take it off. And the jam nut on this side was ON. Wrench here, wrench there, puulllll! Nothing. To top it off, the edge of the heat shield for the cat is right where your hand will go when it breaks loose, probably opening it up.

To make things worse, it was now dark and still a bit warm under the truck, I was sweating so much my head-light wouldn't stay on my head. Andrew held the LED mini-mag on the nut while I worked on the problem. That's a pretty bright little torch.

The only way to tell the jam nut from the holding nut was the faint line between them as their flat edges were perfectly aligned. I could turn the bolt by hand and hold both nuts with a wrench against the frame, but that was sooo hard on the bolt I really didn't want to go the 2"+ that way. Plus I hadn't had my Wheaties, so it was going to wear me out. If this was my last resort, I would definitely not use the impact gun on it. That sucker puts out more than 600 ft/lbs at max setting, I wouldn't notice something was going wrong until it was way wrong.

Finally, I got smart and put a wrench on the bottom nut, braced it to the frame, and TIGHTENED the bolt with the air hammer (set to 2 of 5, which is about 80-90 ft/lbs). After a brief fight, the jam nut stayed where it was while the bottom nut moved away from it. Move the wrench to the jam nut, and the bolt was in my hands seconds later. Hoorah! Man, that took a while.

I used to be a lot faster, but nowadays I sit behind a desk and hold down a chair for hours on end.

For giggles, we found a yellow crayon and marked the control arm shims. Off came the bottom control arm bolts, the top control arm bolts, the steering arm adjusters, the front shocks, driveshaft (since the swaybar acts as a d-shaft hoop, no worries about getting clonked on the head!).

Around then we called it a night, put the tools and parts in the garage, closed up, and took a shower, cleaning up the thick grease off our arms and legs (shorts, of course!). By now it was about 10pm.

While I'm in here, that radio has been annoying me...

2011-07-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

So I was on quite a roll this evening. I got my blower motor working, I got my AC problem narrowed down. I need a couple parts for the turbo, so while I'm waiting, I decided to tackle the radio.

I had gotten quite a windfall of parts in September of '09 from someone who was parting out his truck for Cash4Clunkers. His was real nice, I felt bad. But I feel good about the parts I saved from the wreckers. :) What's amazing about this blog is the timeline. I can't believe how long I've had this truck and how little I've done. It really speaks volumes for where my priorities have been.

One of the things I got was his radio out of his truck. I liked it because it was decent, but not desireable. Since the top comes off the truck, the last thing I want is people breaking the dash up to steal stuff.

The one that was in my truck is a 1998 Pioneer, just like the one I put in my '81 Honda Prelude around then. The front was grimy from the PO (see the link above for the condition of the carpet). The left speaker worked intermittently, and the crackling wasn't pleasant. It's a good deck, this one had just seen far better days. It MAY get transplanted to our Rhino if not tossed outright. The deck in there got caught in a sandstorm and quit working.

When I got the truck, the radio was in its hole, cockeyed. As part of making up all hte issues, the shop that rebuilt my motor had "fixed" my deck. It definitely was straight, and it definitely looked better.

So you can imagine my surprise when I pulled the deck out and found the wires were an outright mess. Some taped, some with wire nuts, some just twisted together. Not the worst wiring job I've seen, but a definite runner-up. The plug for the deck had a screw rammed into it, why, I don't know since the clip works fine.

Happily, they didn't butcher the factory harness, instead using an adapter, allowing me to unplug the absolute mess and plug in the new deck and harness. Click/snap, done!!

While I was in there, I found one more fuse and relay behind the radio at the transmission tunnel/firewall junction (wondering if it's for the rear heater). Toyota put fuses everywhere in their trucks, man!

While I was under the dash, I noticed the RCA cable was routed over the brake pedal rod (no, really) and came down near the gas pedal. I rerouted it over the AC ducting, getting another 5", making it easier to put the deck back in. The cable no longer goes to anything, it looks like a PO swapped out a lot of the nice stuff in there before selling it.

A quick 20 minutes and I had a new-to-me deck installed and ready to go. Even better, both speakers are working and sound fine. The deck is about 7 years old, but it works well and sounds nice. And it's not fancy enough someone will want to steal it.

It doesn't put out nearly as many watts as the Pioneer (about 1/2), I'll see how it sounds next time I drive it. Here's hoping it's OK. If not, another candidate for the Rhino and the sand gods!

AC is intermittent...

2011-07-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

My AC has been intermittent since I got the truck. It works, it doesn't work. It's been annoying, especially when it's truly hot and humid out, like when we were in Houston (it played toad behind the motorhome after disconnecting the rear driveshaft).

Not long after the new engine, I had the AC converted to R134a.

Lately, the AC hasn't worked at all. I used to be able to get it to come on about every 2nd-10th try. Guessing that a borderline part had finally given up the ghost, and with the heat of summer coming, especially when you get out to the desert surrounding San Diego, it was time to fix it!

I tell you, troubleshooting issues is so much easier with forums and with Google than it used to be. I searched around and learned some things it could be.

A quick note for anyone troubleshooting electrical problems. You need both a meter AND a test light.

Meters are awesome. I spent about an hour one day troubleshooting my sister's 1981 Celica and why the headlighs wouldn't work when they had 12v running to them (13.6 actually). Scratching my head. Taking more readings. Scratching my head some more. Finally I broke out my test light and tested a headlight connector. The problem was immediately noticeable as it barely lit up. Following the wires back to the connector at the battery showed a wire that had corroded nearly all the way through in a hard-to-spot way, 2 meager strands providing the 12v it took to fool my meter into thinking all was well.

The FSM (Factory Service Manual) is a must for anyone working on this stuff. This one is a 1988 version instead of 1987, but usually that's close enough! The wiring diagrams in books like these are great, but what's missing is... where is that silly relay/connector/fuse block/switch/etc. actually located on the truck! I have a Haynes to go with the FSM.

So... back to the AC.

In my case, the AC button lights up, but nothing happens. The fact it lights up at all was a little weird I thought, but it turns out it seems to just mean the button is pushed in.

Since getting the switch out looked to be a pain, and it lights up 100% of the time it's depressed, I figured I would start with the AC relay. Hopefully it was easier to get to and I could check for current from the switch with my handy-dandy test light.

The AC relay is directly behind the glovebox, on top of the evaporator housing, just to the right of centerline (unlike the left a forum post had indicated - that's the AC Amplifier). The glovebox was easy to get behind, pulling down the flap (gently!) and popping the box itself down past the left and right catches (gently again!). When I flipped the switch on and off, the relay clicked merrily. Hmm.... That's good, but not for me. :)

I borrowed this picture from 4Crawler

The little black button is the light switch for the glovebox.
He's marked the AC low pressure switch connector.
The connector below it is for the thermistor.

My thermistor connector was jammed behind the glovebox switch, wearing through the white/blue wire's insulation and causing a short. Since no fuse was damaged, and looking at the wiring diagram, it appears to be on the ground-side. However, it could certainly explain the intermittency since it runs back into the AC Amplifier at that point. The AC Amp controls compressor lockup.

I taped the wire up, then moved the connector up higher and used some of the wire clips available to keep it there.

Unfortunately, that did not change the behaviour - the compressor still wasn't coming on.

Well, the low pressure switch is right there, let's check it. Hmmm, power to only one side (red wire, incoming).

I pulled a cap off the compressor and just touched the schrader valve. Nothing. Held it down. Nothing.

The system is totally empty (standard pressure). Crap, time to find the leak... It's been converted to R134, so it'll be easy to rectify once I've sorted out the leak. When it was converted, it held vaccum and worked for over a year, so this is a new problem.

Hopefully it's not the compressor (cha-ching!!).

It wasn't a total loss, I got to tear into the truck a bit and learn more about it.

At the same time, I found the heater and AC fuses behind the dash. No, really. Not hard to get to, but you have to pull the glovebox out (2 minutes) to get to them.

The blower only blows on the last 2 positions.

2011-07-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

Ever since I bought my 4Runner, the blower only worked on positions 3 and 4. 1 & 2 were nonfunctional. Like everyone, I assumed it was going to be the switch. The thought of tearing into the dash wasn't exciting me, so I kept putting it off.

It turns out it's an easy fix for the 4Runner. Toyota wanted around $30 for the part, local parts store as cheap as $10.xx. I went with that option. Plus they're local!

4Crawler's site has provided a wealth of information. May it never go offline. Here's the hot tip on replacing the blower resistor.

It's tucked up in front of the blower motor, getting the screw back into it was a bit of a chore. I had the old one in my hand in about 2 minutes. It took me about 10 to work the screw back in and make sure the resistor was properly seated.

Ahhh, now my blower blows on 1 and 2!

The turbo goes loose... again.

2011-07-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

Well, the lift and lockers are on hold as the truck is not driveable. Oh, sure, if the monsters were chasing me or a monster earthquake happened, but an exhaust leak has the opportunity to screw up some of my hoses and wiring, so it's going to stay parked.

My turbo has gone loose again. You can tell it's coming loose because it start squalling in a "I need a bearing!" kind of way. That's really just air leaking by the exhaust manifold/turbo junction, as it got looser on the ride home, it quit squalling and the sound of a massive exhaust leak took over. Boost plummeted to 3 bars on the gauge.

Last night I dug into it a bit. For a newly rebuilt motor and turbo, this thing sure has a lot of oil leaks. :(

The turbo lost one stud, the other 3 range between loose and very loose. The exhaust pipe to turbo has a nut that would have come off if it had the room to do so. The exhaust manifold had a stud underneath that might have been hanging on by a thread at most.

I have a feeling I'll be retightening just about every bolt that shop touched (intake side was already done by another shop - scan down for that saga). Since the machine shop, which has a solid reputation, did the bottom end, I'm not worried about a connecting rod coming loose. And I retorqued the head bolts when I put in a new cam, so I know those are good.

Since my phone is not grease-proof, I may not get a lot of pictures.

The upside is that I'll be happy with how well it runs when I'm done!

The lift is ordered...

2011-06-13T16:29:00.000-07:00

After weeks and weeks of research, I've decided I'm going Blazeland and Zuk mod.

I'll be the first trying to get 4" of lift out of the Zuk mod, we'll see how that goes!

When I buy parts, I prefer to go with the guy who gives me their good price first, not the one who I work down the most. Quoting me MSRP is the fastest way to get me to move on, no matter how good their end price will be.

I always prefer to work with people who are willing to set a price which makes them a decent profit, have great customer service (I will pay more for this), and a solid reputation.

I bought the arms used from an inmate, and everything but the springs and some of the balljoints from Dave'z Off Road Performance. He and his team really know their stuff, were super competitive from the get-go, and have a great reputation. Dave and his team also had a great sense of humor while we worked through the purchase process, and they had no problem throwing me a quote and then waiting for me to come back when I was ready.

They won my business. Disclaimer - just a satisfied customer with no other relationship to Dave and his team.

My parts should be here over the next week and I'm excited!

BlaZuk - Installing Blazeland arms and a Zuk mod rear coil on my leafs!

2011-05-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

After weeks and weeks of research, I've decided I'm going Blazeland and Zuk mod.

I'll be the first trying to get 4" of lift out of the Zuk mod, we'll see how that goes!

When I buy parts, I prefer to go with the guy who gives me their good price first, not the one who I work down the most. Quoting me MSRP is the fastest way to get me to move on, no matter how good their end price will be.

I always prefer to work with people who are willing to set a price which makes them a decent profit, have great customer service (I will pay more for this), and a solid reputation.

I bought the arms used from a YotaTech inmate, and everything but the springs and some of the balljoints from Dave'z Off Road Performance. He and his team really know their stuff, were super competitive from the get-go, and have a great reputation. Dave and his team also had a great sense of humor while we worked through the purchase process, and they had no problem throwing me a quote and then waiting for me to come back when I was ready.

They won my business. Disclaimer - just a satisfied customer with no other relationship to Dave and his team.

My parts should be here over the next week and I'm excited!

How to disconnect the front sway bar?

2011-05-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

Since the lift I'll be going with doesn't have a good swaybar option, I'm going to start to focus on how to put a swaybar on it. Here's some details on the disconnect mechanisms available, and why we need it.

In fast offroad sweepers, or when coming into a corner on the brakes, the rear of the 4Runner wants to come out and has to be caught. Last weekend, in a sand wash doing about 30-40, we spent a lot of time sideways - much more than was intended or preferred!

Its on-road manners are similar, and oversteer is the least desirable trait for onroad driving. Car manufacturers generally dial in understeer when they deliver their vehicles; it's the safest of the available choices.

From the details below, you'll see this means the front is too soft. So we'll need stiffer springs or swaybar. And that means less flex. Which means we need to be able to disconnect it.

Ok, so we know we want to disconnect the front sway bar. How does one do that on a Toyota?

This gentleman put together a very comprehensive list of swaybar disconnect options, and also walks us through his DIY efforts. Unfortunately, like so many other great pages which have been around a while, links to other sites/pages are broken. So I'm going to use a common practice and copy some of his content here in case his page goes away.

At one point, his prototype broke, leading to this comment:
"Originally I constructed these disconnects out of 3/8" hardware. After crossing up the vehicle off road with the disconnects I was able to snap one side. For the street the 3/8" hardware was strong enough but if you wheel with the disconnects installed they will break. Hence, I built bigger ones shown above. You can also see the difference in hardware size from the other picture below. "

Can you imagine what would happen if you were in a fast sweeper and the front sway bar link broke? Front swaybars keep the rear from coming out. I borrowed the bullets below from the Ozark Porsche Club's suspension document

To induce oversteer because your car won't turn in quickly enough:

Stiffen the rear of the car with bigger springs, shocks, anti-sway bar, or some combination of these or. . . .
Soften the front of the car with smaller springs, shocks, anti-sway bar, or some combination of these

To induce understeer because your car is "tail happy", reverse the above:

Stiffen the front of the car with bigger springs, shocks, anti-sway bar, or some combination of these or. . .
Soften the rear of the car with smaller springs, shocks, anti-sway bar, or some combination of these

Breaking a swaybar link offroad flexing across a rut means it was NOT OK for the street, it was in fact dangerous, risking an accident.

Ok, so we want a strong and safe part. :) Some of the other things to consider:

Disconnects work by making part of the link that connects the swaybar end to the truck or suspension part removable. This often requires that you have a zip tie handy to tie your swaybar up. Somehow, much of the market is OK with these solutions. The product I used on the Blazer included a frame mount where you just reused a pin to lock the swaybar to the frame while you wheeled. No zip ties.
Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if I could do this with a button in the cab?

This fellow has done it, but has provided very little detail on the parts he used. After a surprising amount of searching, this looks to be a device found on a Nissan Patrol GQ or Y61. MSRP appears to be in the $1,000-3,000 range depending on the unit.

Improving offroad capabilites. Starting point... Flex!

2011-05-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

As we saw when I was stretching the 4Runner out to see where the new tires hit, my truck exhibits very low levels of flexibility in it current configuration.

With open differentials, keeping both the left and right tires on the ground makes an enormous difference to how far you can make it offroad. Open differentails provide power to the tire with the LEAST amount of traction (e.g., the one in the air spins, the one on the ground does nothing)

To the right is my truck, fully stock except with larger tires, fully flexed out.

The red box shows the truck is relatively level, but down in front a couple inches. The blue line shows what the height difference from the bottom of the front tire to the bottom of the rear tire. If the truck were fully level, that means it only has about 14-16" (the wheel is 16" in diameter) difference from front stuff to rear droop. I didn't bother with the other pics and doing the math, this was depressing enough. LOL

Left to right flex in the front was definitely nothing to write home about either. It's a few inchest at most.
The rear did a lot better.

Compare the pictures above to my Blazer at its pinnacle, from a suspension perspective, with 32" tires. Huge flex. It's not even fully stretched out yet and can do better. The top of the rear tire would be almost even with the bottom of the front tire at full flex. That's around a 32" differential. Much better than what the 4runner is seeing now. This is one reason solid axles are a frequent conversion option for IFS trucks.

Here's my Blazer on 36s in a similar situation to the one the 4Runner is pictured in at the begining of this post. Same suspension setup as the Blazer pic above, just bigger tires. The sway bar is connected. Any further up the rock and the right front tire started to come off the ground. This is how good it was in street trim. :-D

Obviously we can't leave the 4Runner like it is! Off to Google to learn more about what this truck can really do! Here's a great thread showing various YotaTech IFS trucks' capabilities when it comes to flex. Some are stock, some are modified

To improve offroad articulation, disconnecting the sway bar is the first change to make, and can yield substantial results. Offroad.com has a good overview of the parts we're talking about.

Sway bars work by keeping both tires relatively level, from side to side. As one side gets compressed in a corner, the sway bar pulls up on the other side. There's an awful lot more to engineering a good handling car than that but, in rough terms, is how a sway bar works.

While my passenger tire in the pic above is stuffed in the fender, it's not quite as far as it can go. And it's pulling the driver's side tire up via the sway bar. And the driver's side tire is pulling the passenger tire down. Great in a corner, not great offroad when crossing uneven terrain.

With the swaybar disconnected, my driver's front will droop lower, and the passenger front will stuff up even more (which, I'm sure, means more tire clearancing activities as we take this step).

A surprising number of folks recommend removing a swaybar entirely. That's really not recommended and I would hate to be in an accident and have that come up as a possible reason. I need a vehicle to handle well on pavement at all times. My car is a BMW M3 and it is just flat out phenomonal on curvy roads. While I don't expect similar performance from an SUV, it is important that it is above all else safe for any of my family members to drive. Predictability is a critical component of "safe".

So... the swaybar stays. And, given its current road-handling manners, the truck probably will get a beefier front and a rear sway bar added at some point since current handling still leaves a bit to be desired.

Next - what options do we have?

Baby gets new shoes, finally!

2011-05-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

Edit May 9, 2011 - added highway noise videos to bottom
---

Given the 4Runner would be used offroad on a regular basis, I wanted to get an aggressive tire. I've always loved my BFG MTs, but that tread pattern is no longer available. The Goodyear MT/R has also been quite interesting.

About 4 months ago, I scored some 2010 4Runner takeoff wheels and tires (245/75R16 Dunlop AT20) from the local Toyota dealer. Wheels, tires, lug nuts, center caps.

As you can imagine, a tire that looks like this really doesn't turn out to be exactly good offroad. :)
I've already racked up 800 miles on these tires. And chopped a 2" gash through the inside cords of the RF tire playing Ivan "Iron Man" Stewart on my way home from an offroad trip (we were late for SuperCross). I smacked a rock at speed, bending the steel rim. I still can't fathom which rock. :) It still holds air, and it got me home (slowly!!), but the bubble extends from the tread to the rim. It's non-repairable. The wheel banged out quite easily.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, truck tire prices have gone stratospheric. 10 years ago, I could buy a 265/75R16 Bridgestone Dueler H/T for about $70 or less. The same tire today is over $200. And that's just a road tire.

My daily driver is a BMW K1200S motorcycle. The rear tire is a 190/50R17, speed rated to 186mph. It's the size of a car tire. It has an immense amount of technology in it (compared to even just 10 years ago, this tire is better in every conceivable way). I run Michelin Pilot Sport IIs, which are both a premium tire, and dual compound. Yet, it somehow "only" costs $136 for a rear tire.

All other tires prices have gone up. Offroad tire prices have gone stratospheric.

The 285/75R16 Goodyear MT/R has a best internet price of around $238/tire, the BFG KM2, in the $220 range. Plus shipping in many cases ($65 to $220 for four).

For 4 Goodyears, I came up with about $1070 for 4 tires, delivered to my door, ore over $1200 locally (installed).
Try as I might, I was unable to find a prices I was comfortable with for what is, arguably, mostly a toy.

But then I found TreadWright. I was able to get four 285s for under $600 delivered to my door, on sale (about $12/tire less).

Long ago, I learned that spending extra for a good product is nearly always the better investment. I've had particle board. I've had real wood. My Bentwood bedroom set was fanstatic and looked as good more than 10 years after we bought it as the day it came home with us. I still miss my nightstands.
The other is that no matter how good the product, it may have issues. How the company backs their products is just as important. One of the benefits of the internet age is you can find out how a product/company is treating their customers.

I found almost no issues with TreadWright products, and the one or two I found were related to tread chunking. TreadWright sent one guy a whole set of tires because one tire had a problem. As you can imagine, he was an avid fan.

But I wasn't able to find anyone I knew who had run a set, or someone they knew personally who had run a set.

For ~$500 in savings with few findable issues and what appeared to be great customer service, I went ahead and ordered up a set of 285/75R16 TreadWright Guard Dog M/T tires for the 4Runner. They were on backorder, so I had to call them to order. I ordered Goodyear casings since I wanted to try them. I wasn't in a rush, I had great tires and my list of lift parts wasn't complete yet.

After a few weeks, they called me and let me know my tires were next up, but Goodyear casings were hard to come by - did I want BFG casings instead? Since I was mounting these black side out, I didn't really care, so I agreed.

Before, 225/75R15 stock wheels and tires (the rears are Nittos and were old enough to be originals!)

After. Man, they look good.

With no lift, they fit. Sorta. :) Here's the driver's rear at full stuff. It's just touching the bolts that hold the rear mudflaps on.

The LF hits the back of the fender when turned 1/2 way to the left and with any bump. Since the metal wasn't going to cut the tire, and wasn't well supported, I let it self-clearance.
The RF just touches the back of the fender.

Pics as I figure out how to resolve this.

Here are a few more pictures of the 4Runner in action.

As you can see, I was eager to try them out. The old tires are still in the back, we didn't even make it home. :)

Check out how they sound on the road!

Couple of videos. #2 has me speaking in a normal voice for reference.

At this point, I have about 250 miles on 'em and I am quite pleased.

Marking time...

2011-03-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

Build ingredients so far (read text for details)

Blazeland arms
Sway Away torsion bars
Black Magic coil springs for rear
TreadWright 285s in a GoodYear MT clone tread

Like all buildups, these things ebb and flow. I've been in an ebb, mostly because of work constraints.

The first challenge of building a 4x4 is where to start. I find that building for the terrain you'll run most of the time seems to be the best approach.

We did the Pinyon Canyon run last weekend, and I learned a lot about the terrain out here and what I wanted.

The 4Runner did as well, fully aired up, as a 2010 Wrangler did aired down. But it was far less capable than my last two trucks. As it should be, it's stock!

I've been researching what to do for lift on the truck. I want 37s badly. But, it turns out, not badly enough to do a SAS (Solid [front] Axle Swap). In researching options, I ran across 4Wheel Underground's bracket kit for a 3-link front end. It looks very interesting and if I was doing a SAS, I think that's what I'd go with. The guys at FROR/Diamond turned me onto them.

After doing a bit more research, I decided I really wanted to try the LT IFS route. I have a feeling I'll tub the fronts fenderwells at some point so I can run 35s. But that's a ways away, and quite a few $$ too. While AxleIke runs 35s on Morph with just a balljoint lift (it's also had some serious surgery), I don't expect to be able to use the same tricks in a long travel implementation.

To solve my long travel angst, I priced out the Total Chaos and the JD Fabrication setups. Both very cool. Both a bit pricey for my budget right now.

Another option is the Blazeland kit. It's been getting good reviews, and I figure it probably compares well to the TC balljoint kit - but at a much lower price.

Last week, I bit the bullet and picked up a set of Blazeland arms and Sway Away torsion bars. $400 for OE balljoints makes this lift a bit pricier, but still cheaper than the other options by a lot.

I was also trying to figure out what to do with the rear. Blocks are out if at all possible. And if I'm going to spend some real $$, then I want the Deavers. Except I need to spend that $$ elsewhere right now.

Then I remembered the ZUK spring mod. Zuk turned me onto this thread where the fellow replaces his 4" lift blocks and maintains his 4" lifted height. While he still doesn't sit level, the important part is he replaced 4" lift blocks with springs and actually gained 1/2", and the ride got a heck of a lot better.

Now all that's left is to order shocks and brake lines - and figure out what to do with the LSPV valve (rear braking load adjusting valve. See thread above for his experience with this important valve).

All that was left was tires. And man, are they ever expensive nowadays! Which led me to Treadwright and their 285/75R16 Guard Dog M/T, a Goodyear MT/R clone. Sorta. They retread tires, and I can specify what brand casing I want (not necessarily the model, however).

I was not able to find any bad reviews for the tire. For the $$, compared to new, I couldn't pass them up. I called and doublechecked, and was told that the casing's speed ratings are retained. The only gotcha is the warranty is null and void if you air them down. Like if you're wheeling. I'm willing to give 'em a shot for the $$ difference, especially given the lack of negative reviews.

Stay tuned as I keep sorting out what's next!

Before you build, test... (Pinyon Canyon, Feb 2010)

2011-03-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

Given how capable my K5 Blazer was stock, and the good things I'd heard about Toys, I figured the first thing to do was to take it out and see what it was capable of.

In addition, I'd moved to a new area and didn't know what the terrain would look like. Did I need lockers, or was it pretty straightforward?

Also, I need to consider the dirt. When I moved to Oregon, I had 32" BFG ATs on the Blazer. My first trip out, I couldn't cross the clearing since the clay was so slick and gummed up the tread. It was fun sitting there blipping the throttle and throwing mud, not going anywhere fast, but was not a good combo for many trails up there. However, I grew up in the desert of Arizona, and ATs work great there. What would I find in the SoCal area? Well, I found clay and mud. So MTs are definitely on the parts list.

Before this trip, I had 225/75R14s. No way were those going offroad very far.

While searching Craigslist, I scored some 245/75R16s (appx 31" tall) off a 2010 Toy. However they're Dunlop AT20s, so tread pattern was very street friendly. On a wet day like when we went out, that made for poor traction. The tires wouldn't be long-lived, but I did want 16" wheels.

This was my first real 4-lo wheeling experience with this truck. I was excited!

Overall, it was very educational. I got to meet some new folks (from the BeachNToys San Diego Toyota club), drive a new, exciting trail, and figure out what needed to change on my truck.

Pinyon Canyon starts right off of S2 near Highway 78, on the way to Ocotillo Wells ORV park. It is not an ORV area, and vehicles must remain on the roadways.

The first thing I found was that ground clearance was in fact decent.
The next thing I found is that having a narrow rig sure is nice. But that if your tires don't stick out a bit, you still scratch the paint.

The first real obstacle is The Squeeze. Legend has it someone has taken a fullsize Dodge through here with no body damage.

Looks good from here. Keep going! (it's raining, which makes it even more fun!)

I should have been more right (left in the pic)

Here the door lock is getting "offroad-buffed" by the rock wall.

And now the bumper is earning its keep as I drag it over some rocks. This short section here dented the bottom of the rear tube. It's a Smittybuilt rear bumper (and front) but it's not very robust.

I didn't get through unscathed, but I was far from the damage award winner on this section. Sorry, no pics of that!

The next tough section is this rock that overhangs the trail right at window-height, with the trail crossing some rocks that put your flex and lockers to work. I don't have either, so I got strapped through it. There's a lot of glass on the trail under that rock. Unfortunately, I didn't get pics, so I'll need to go back! >:)

One of the drivers went at it with too much exuberance and added to the glass on the trail, smashing out his driver's rear glass on his shell. Ouch. No pics of that either, he was having a bad day and I didn't want to add to it.

Right after that section, is this part. The 4Runner, she would go no more. At this part, I started to get a little frustrated with the 4Runner. My '88 K5 Blazer, stock, would walk have walked up this (locker in the rear, stock). The 4Runner made it to here, then lost traction to the left front and right rear. Nothing but air. With traction aiding devices, she was done.

Once again, here comes the strap. Greg was real nice about it all day, with his FJ.

As you can see from this pic, it doesn't take much to run out of flex on a stock 4runner (with newer tires!). The LF and RR are in the air or barely touching. No more forward progress...

Fortunately (really!), someone brought their rental Jeep out on the trail. Same size tire, similar street tread. And same problems in the same places!!! Trail Rated? You decide! ROTFL
The blue toy is running 35s, a Marlin doubler, etc. It didn't know it was supposed to be struggling!

After that, you go down this little hill called Heart Attack Hill. It looks far more imposing in person. Once you drive it, it's no big deal.

Don't let that fool you, one screwup and it's bad on this hill. This gal apparently broke her back during a different trip. Lots of things went wrong here. She starts down the hill around 1:15 into the video

By the way - even though you're going 5mph, wear your seatbelt.

I'd seen the video, so know which line I didn't want to take in a stock truck on slippery street tires with no flex and an automatic (hinders compression-braking down things like this, even in 4Lo).

At the same time, I'd seen the videos of people driving up this hill too (and would have likely tried in one of my last two!).

This section is a controlled crash with limited flex and street tires. You don't get to choose exactly where to stop.

By this point, all 4 wheels are on the ground again and life is looking longer. LOL

Look at that rear wheel - suspension travel is important. Notice the passenger seat is empty? Andrew and I decided it was best if he walked. And, yes, I'm wearing my seatbelt!

Here's the group at the bottom of the hill, after no exciting moments. :)
Lunch break!

It was a beautiful day. The rain had cleared, the ground was wet, and seasonal streams were running.

After that, it's more cool road/trail, then this. Once again, a strap came to several of our rescues!
Here's the blue toy once again just cruising up things

Notice a difference the wheelbase and flex (and line!) makes? :-D

This is what I looked like (but not me). This is a RHD diesel truck. Man it's cool. No lockers, though, so he got strapped too. That's me standing in the pic.

I wasn't brave enough to try this line with the 4Runner (plus he's locked at both ends). No traction, no lockers... Strap please!

I'm standing by the rear bumper in case an extra 250# helps keep the rubber down. LOL

Quite a bit more driving and you come out to Fish Wash. Just past here, there was running water in the wash, and Wind Caves. The caves are apparently popular, lots of people drove up the wash (easy, but 4WD required in most conditions because of the sand/mud) to go there.

I need to go back and see what those are.

I shamelessly have stolen this pic from one of the other guys to represent it as my own as we didn't take any

This was a great ride and I wish we had had more time to explore more of it.

The water out there appears to be highly mineral-rich. Where I took the paint off the wheels and bumpers, the metal started to rust a fluorescent orange within days because I was lax in washing the truck (I was just happy to have it dirty!).

My super thanks to the BeachNToys gang for putting up with our truck on there. Granted, no one thought I'd have a problem, but that's 'cause their trucks are so awesome they didn't realize a stock vehicle was a no-go.

I got to meet a great bunch and have a great time and can't wait for the next run - with a slightly more capable truck!

A little history before we dive into the buildup...

2011-03-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

One of the challenges of building a 4x4 is where to start.

This Toyota is my 4th offroad truck.

My first was a 76 International Scout II. It was orange with a white top. The 345, 4 speed, Dana 44s and a well-worn TracLoc in the rear that was useless just about everywhere. The engine was heavy-wall cast and weighed about 900#. Mud and this truck were not friends. But you couldn't dent it, and you didn't care if you did. It did OK offroad, but I never lifted it and clearance was the biggest issue. And mud.

Eric's 88 K5 Blazer on Little Rubicon in Tillamook State Forest

My next truck was a K5 Blazer. It was quite capable bone stock. With a Gov-Loc in the back (limited slip/locker combo), it's really a 3WD when you move the short lever in the 4wd position. Throw on some good tires, disconnect the front swaybar, and it happily went a lot of places most stock trucks struggle through. When driven properly, a Gov Loc is pretty capable. I've also blown up a couple. Mid- and late-80s Blazers, like mine, came with 28 spline axles with c-clips. That leads to moments like this. :)

My next truck was a class 1700 JeepSpeed Jeep Cherokee. The cage was set up to seat 5, and it went through the dash down the a-pillars. Just awesome. However, I learned that I didn't like having all my rear cargo room taken up by cage and shocks. This was during the tech bubble, so I had a little bit of coin to throw at it and was able to get it all done at once. Dave Turner Motorsports did the work, and they did a fabulous job. All welding was TIG, etc. Really well done. It worked great and we did race it. I wish I didn't have to sell it because it was so capable. But we never really bonded, that truck and me. It was super cool and ultra fast. It ran PRP seats and nets, BFG MTs (still my favorite), Deaver springs, Bilstein 9100s and air bumps, etc. Desert Mike at Kartek provided much of the hardware that went onto the truck.

Now I'm onto my 4Runner. I've always wanted one. And, so far, we've really bonded. I really like the truck, even though it's noisy, it vibrates (Total Chaos solid motor mounts), it's loud (the muffler has got to go), it's slow (intercooler, where are you!?), and it doesn't wheel very well stock (as well as a stock 2010 Wrangler at least). How's that for funny? In some ways, I really like it better than the Cherokee - which was far more urbane, comfortable, had better handling, and was faster. But the 4Runner is giving back about 17mpg with 32" tires on it and an automatic. On this ethanol crap we need to run nowadays. That's pretty cool.

More about the wheeling part in my next post!

DOA cam installed. Survey says!!!...

2010-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

Let's summarize where we're at.

We spent beaucoup $$$ getting an engine rebuilt so it would run the same or worse than it did when I bought it with a huge exhaust leak, 212K miles, a nearly non-working turbo (very, very little boost), and stock exhaust. The shop I'd been using is telling me this is how these turbos run. Repeatedly.

At lower RPMs at 4.5 PSI boost (more than when I bought it), it ran worse than when I bought it. It really had not run better, and would hardly do 80, just a smidge better than before I brought it in.

Some sleuthing around and learning had me convinced the cam was retarded. The shop had "checked" and said it wasn't off a tooth. Errr, but was it retarded?

I'd sent off the dyno chart to a slew of shops in the San Diego area, with the offer to bring them my problem if they could tell me what it was. I got a lot of interesting responses, but only a couple diagnosed it as likely a cam retardation problem or possibly an overly aggressive cam (all focused on peak power). Most others wanted to throw more ignition timing at it. Errr, the dyno shop already did that folks!

Convinced it was the cam, I ordered one from DOA Racing. It had a lot of great reviews all over the place.

Since I was tired of spending $$, and it was just a cam, I decided to do it myself. Sure, I'd likely get it reimbursed by "The Shop", but "likely" might involved court this time, and I really wanted to tear into this thing myself.

Scott, my ultra-cool mechanically inclined neighbor came over. He has a 350hp VW-motored buggy and used to rebuild and maintain 16 cylinder methane-powered engines. Not a bad guy to have in your camp. I'm no slouch, having rebuilt a couple motors and trannies, etc., but it's not something I do every day. :)

Before installing the cam, I degree'd the existing cam. It showed about 7 degrees retarded. Yeouch!
The Crane Stage II cam is not a turbo cam. And, as I'd mentioned, I found enough complaints about lack of power and running rich for the Crane Stage II cam in normally aspirated applications, I was just happy to get it out. I really, really resist spending money chasing problems without having confidence the $$ being spent will solve the issue. I really did my homework on this one, and I was feeling good. Not always a good sign! LOL

Input from folks was that a 105 degree centerline cam in an automatic wasn't exactly a good match. Now, granted, the AT is not intended to be in there for too much longer, but whatever - once the truck is running down the road, AT or MT doesn't matter. And saying this one didn't run down the road none too good was being generous.

The new cam from DOA Racing is a 110 degree centerline.

When I held both cams up (Crane Stage II, supposedly, and the DOA 270) with the dowel pins at 12:00 the Crane's lobes were further counterclockwise than the DOA's. There's that 5 degree difference... Maybe more.

Old Cam specs from my invoice:                  New Cam specs

Cam specs Int Exh                                       (SWAG from the writing on the box)
Valve lift: .429 .442                                     .432
Cam lift: .275 .283                                      .271
Duration (SAE)
Valve lash .012 .012
Centerline 105 105                                      110
Spread 110
Timing events @ 0.050
Duration 224 234                                        226
Rocker ratio: 1.56                                       Same (same rockers)

Nice cam comparison site (does not include the DOA cam):
http://home.comcast.net/~jonmarkstewart/cam.htm

This was probably the easiest cam I've ever done. The only reason it took as long as it did is that I was messing around with the degree wheel and finding where the original cam was phased. I loosely followed these directions. I was worried about the head gasket, but I had quite a few people, including some really respected names in Toyotas, tell me as long as I didn't break the seal, I was good.

Years ago, I replaced a head on my mom's 22RE, and I remember that sucker was sealed pretty well to the block, so I got over it and bit the bullet!.
I installed the new cam, slathered in cam lube, and degree'd it. It came out to 3 degrees retarded. None of the degree wheel stuff was touched in between cams. I'm wondering if the Cranes are being misdrilled...

After the initial valve adjustment, it was... The Moment of Truth!

I'm used to Chevy's where the distributor spins 360 while you get it started, then you adjust it as needed so the wires and/or vacuum advance (for oldies) points where you want 'em to AFTER you break in the cam/motor. On the Toy, the distributor has a limited swing and you need to stop, pull the cap (2 small bolts), pull the retaining bolt, rotate it, replace the cap, replace the bolt, and see how you did.

It took me three tries to get the distributor where I wanted it. :)

The first time, I had the ignition timing way off and when I cranked it over, it fired as one of the pistons tried to come up, nearly stalling the poor starter. D'oh!

Off with the cap, pull and rotate the distributor a bit, try again. It started. Checked the timing and it was still way off. I had to pull the distributor one more time to get it where I wanted and so it would time well. I set it to factory specs (jumper the check pins!), 5 degrees BTDC, for now. It's going to a shop to get tuned on the dyno, so I'm not too worried about that part right now.

After 20 minutes for breakin, I let it cool down a bit while I cleaned up and put most of the tools away. If you put them all away, you'll need to get them out again. It's just the way it works. ;-)

The first thing I noticed was that it fired RIGHT up. That was an improvement.
It idled much more smoothly. That was an improvement. Especially given the solid motor mounts
At idle, it no longer felt like it wanted to die. That was an improvement
I got in it and went to back up. When it leapt backwards, I started giggling like a schoolgirl. That was a huge improvement.
On the road, it made boost before I reached the STOP sign. That's 3 houses in suburbia. That was a definite improvement, especially considering I wasn't trying. After all, it had a new cam for cripes sake!

On the main road, I realized I was effectively driving a new truck. Holeee Carp! I've never had a single, relatively cheap performance mod make such a tangible difference. And this was with the cam 3 degrees retarded still!

The old truck was a danger to pull out into traffic.
This one throws itself out there in comparison. It's not scary anymore, that's for sure.
The old truck would absolutely NOT spin a tire in dirt from a dead stop (with puny stock 225s no less!).
The new one throws dirt merrily. Then the turbo kicks in and it gets a little angry as it throws dirt. LOL

You all saw the dyno chart I posted earlier. The original behaviour makes perfect sense with that graph. I'm excited to see what the chart looks like now!

Several days later, I got to drive it 50 miles to Temecula. There are some hills between here and there on the highway where even SWMBO's 283hp Suburban wants to shift out of OD. Not the 4Runner, nopers. OD the whole way (Econo mode).

Before, 80 had the poor thing working its guts out (at 4.5psi boost). At 9psi, it still wasn't exactly happy at 80. Now 80 is just some number on the way to a higher number. >:) Time to replace those 10 year old rear tires!!!

In summation, this is the best money I ever spent on a performance mod. It probably wouldn't have been so phenomenal a difference if the Crane cam hadn't been such the wrong choice for this application. But I'm definitely high on DOA camshafts right now!

Next up, taking it to the new shop to get tuned and see what else is Not Quite Right...

Cam is due this week!

2010-11-01T02:10:00.000-07:00

My cam is due later this week, but I need to be out of town.

It''s 2AM on Sunday morning and I've been on a work call since around 10AM. I think this is going to dent another week.

Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men...

New cam is on order

2010-10-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

I've decided to stop whining about the shop I used.

I have a DOA 270 cam on order, hunting down a degree wheel later today. Found a local shop which came recommended by a national vendor which is locally based.

He feels they know what to do with the power curve on the dyno, and the info he provided made me very confident he does in fact know. I'll be swapping the cam myself, then taking it to them for final tuning.

I'm excited to be getting the new cam and learning how to use a degree wheel! Cam should be here in a week or so, but then I'm racing the Elsinore GP on my dual sport, so it'll be a bit until I get back to this.

See you soon!

We have a dyno chart!

2010-10-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

And the news is not what I'd like to see, but it totally matches the butt-o-meter.

Very low power down low, peaking up high. Compare to the dyno charts of other 22RETs here

Cruise at 80 in OD is 2900rpm, maybe 45rwhp, tops. That's around 80-85ft/lbs of torque. No wonder I hate it on the road and it's getting poor mileage (for best efficiency, running at torque peak is generally recomended).
There was no boost controller, so no way to alter boost, and it was only boosting 4.5-4.75psi. No idea WTF the original shop thought they were adjusting or measuring. I'm finally pretty angry with them, especially because the tech very specifically told me and the owner that he had set the boost to 7PSI. The chart has 7PSI on it. I needed to buy a boost controller to allow that to happen. The baseline is the best this truck has run since the new engine and turbo have been installed. I'd have noticed 7PSI...

When I got it back from the original shop this time, it was the best it had run to-date.

Today, after the dyno shop tweaked it and added a boost controller, it's running even better, but the screwiness in the power delivery is even more evident now that there's such a big valley-to-peak difference, and over such a short RPM range.
It runs a LOT better higher in the rev band, and I can actually hear the turbo now.

It's still running quite rich on the top end, as evidenced on the chart below.
I've decided to source a DOA 270 cam, ARP head studs, and a cam degree wheel. I'm convinced this cam is significantly retarded. I'm wondering if the head deck height and/or block aren't out of spec, causing this behaviour. It's supposed to be a new head. OTOH, it was supposed to get a new thermostat, it was supposed to be pushing 7PSI...

Time to do some more Googling.

--------------
Cam specs from my original invoice

From my invoice:
Cam specs Int    Exh
Valve lift:   .429 .442
Cam lift:    .275 .283
Duration (SAE)
Valve lash .012 .012
Centerline 105 105
Spread         110
Timing events @ 0.050
Duration     224 234
Rocker ratio: 1.56

Click here for bigger picture
All #s RWHP

The aftermath...

2010-10-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

While I'd asked for the owner to wait until I was back, I got a call from him. He was very eager to take care of this.

While wiring the truck to be flat-towed behind a motorhome, I flipped up the seat behind the driver to find the bottom was scorched badly, burned through the carpet, and into the pad. I was so angry by now.

The factory heat shield for the muffler had not been reinstalled after they did the cat-back.
On top of that, the muffler was getting hotter than the catalytic convertor. And it was a Flowmaster, which I really didn't like as it was too loud.

The truck had quite a few loose ends the PO had let go (not the original owner who appeared to be meticulous in their care). The aftermarket radio was slapping around, high beams didn't work, a headlight was out, the passenger seat didn't fold forward - lots of little stuff like that.

When I got the truck back, it had a new muffler, the scorched part was repaired (so-so, but I was done by now), and it was finally running better. Not good, but better. The shop insisted all they changed was the muffler, and that the Flowmaster didn't flow well (errr... what?! A Flowmaster is worth about 5-7hp on my BMW M3 which arguably has the best performing stock exhaust in the world).

The truck was washed and vacuumed. The shop also fabbed mounts for my tow bar and safety cables, at no charge. All the little things I mentioned above were resolved at no charge, without telling me.

Wow. Now that's trying to get back on my good side. A previous time I brought it in, it was delivered back to me dirty with greasy prints on the door, fender and hood. It was nice to see them taking this seriously for once.

But there were little things. The tow bar required a hammer to get in, and couldn't left attached and driven around (as I had requested), instead needing to be removed. I brought it back to be tweaked at the owner's request. They fixed that, but now some the pins were missing from my tow bar. It's easy to keep that from happening - PUT THEM BACK IN THE BAR when you're done with them. Gaaaaah!

The day I went to pick it up, someone apparently backed into the driver's rear quarter, breaking the tail lamp and adding dents above and below the tail lamp. It WAS a pretty clean little truck.

We finally squared up, getting me back a check for $750 for the work the shop in Arizona had performed. It wasn't signed, which I found out at the bank because I'm a trusting fool.

This place couldn't do anything well.

Today, I found out the turbo is leaking. Again. I'm sure they'll take care of it if I ask. But do I really want to bring my truck back to them? Absolutely, posti-freakingly no way.

And if anyone ever asks me if they should go there, I'm telling them all about the fun I've had.

The letter...

2010-10-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

Hi Shop-Owner,

I’m writing this letter from my office in San Francisco and don’t have access to my notes or the interim quotes/invoices, so please pardon the rough nature of the numbers and timeframes I’ve included below.

I wanted to roughly recap my experiences so far, in limited detail, so we’re on the same page with respect to my experiences with “The Shop”.

While I find that you’re supportive and pleasant to deal with, my experiences with “The Shop” had left me somewhat dissatisfied overall, but I also felt that, in some ways, like welding in a new O2 sensor bung at no charge, “The Shop” was going over and above and decided to give the shop the benefit of the doubt.

After the problems the truck experienced late last week, however, I find myself extremely dissatisfied, especially since they seem to be related to the root cause of the issues being chased recently. And, the outcome from installing a factory O2 sensor clearly indicates the O2 sensor was not the cause.

My truck, a 1987 Toyota 4Runner Turbo, was returned to me in early December after a prolonged period of time (3 months comes to mind) for an engine rebuild. I had been told it would be “$2400 drive in, drive out” for a performance engine rebuild, which included minor porting and larger valves. This did not include unexpected issues, like a cracked head, nor did it include rebuilding the turbo or add-ons, like Total Chaos motor mounts, cat-back exhaust, etc.

Before getting the truck back in December, you had contacted me with price adjustments, indicating the $2400 did not include an oil pump or a timing chain and those were extra. This was unexpected, as was the new price, which included extras I had asked for as well as many other rebuild-related parts I was not expecting after our conversations around rebuilding the engine. In retrospect and my discussions with other shops, these seem to be common things that would be replaced as part of the rebuild of an engine with 212K miles on them and should have been brought up before any work was started.

My expectation remained that any necessary items would be brought to my attention for review on how to proceed.

The truck was returned to me in early December and needed to be returned to the shop after 600 miles. At 600 miles, I brought it in and indicated there were two issues – the truck was puffing blue smoke on deceleration, and the thermostat appeared to have stuck on the way into your shop that morning, resulting in the temperature gauge reading much higher than normal, but not in the danger zone.

When I got the truck back, the temperature was back to normal and I assumed the thermostat had been swapped out . While I was in AZ, I found that the thermostat was in fact not changed at any time by “The Shop”. The shop in AZ indicated that, given the use of red RTV on the thermostat housing, they did not believe the thermostat had been changed at the time of the engine being rebuilt, and strongly suggested it be changed given the engine was newly rebuilt. Once removed, the old thermostat had rust around the edges. I’ve retained the thermostat.

When I brought the truck back to “The Shop” to have a catalytic convertor installed, I needed an emissions test for the DMV paperwork. I was quite surprised to find that the truck more than doubled the limits for each tested factor. I was informed the truck needed to be brought back in later to resolve the issue, which I did.

Your shop insisted I did not need the VCV valve (I’ve been erroneously calling it a VSV valve) on the valve cover for EGR functions and instead routed the vacuum line so that it was taken out of the system. I indicated several times that I had the old valve, which was damaged, but was told it wasn’t needed. It is pictured in the vacuum diagram under the hood. Later, I was told the valve was very difficult to find and that alternatives were being explored since it managed EGR functions. I’ve since found that the part number for the original valve is 90925-03117 and any of the local Toyota dealers can have it in stock within a day or so.

After getting the truck back this time, it had started to miss at very light throttle openings. You indicated it was likely the O2 sensor, so I brought it back for another O2 sensor, apparently a GM one. The problem, which is very easy to replicate, and annoying, persisted after the change, but your shop indicated it should be fixed when I picked up the truck.

The next time into the shop, the turbo was sent back to the rebuilder under warranty to fix an oil leak, and the O2 sensor was replaced with a stock sensor to resolve the light-throttle miss. The truck continued to exhibit the light-throttle miss after this work, leading me to believe that “The Shop” did not test drive the truck at all. I also found that the O2 leads had been cut off and spade connectors installed. The TPS was also adjusted during this service. The TPS currently only has one screw holding it in.

After this latest repair effort, I needed to go to Tucson, Arizona.

As you know, the fuel gauge doesn’t work well on the truck. Given this, I was using the odometer to track when it was time to fill up. When I bought the truck, with about 212,000 miles on it and with a poorly running engine, I drove it from Sacramento to San Diego and averaged 20mpg.

Fuel mileage on this trip was dismal and I ran out of gas on the highway near Winterhaven, CA with around 175 miles on that tank, which holds more than 17 gallons. A CHP officer pushed me and the truck to the nearest gas station. Fuel mileage continued to be poor for the duration of the trip out, hovering in the 11mpg range.

Near Green Valley, the truck started making a tapping sound and running rough/poorly. I pulled over and called a local shop for service.

While the shop had my truck, I borrowed a friend’s truck to get around, or there would be a rental charge as well.

The intake boot had gritty, thick oil in it, as did the intake itself (where the butterfly valve is). It seems like it had been there a while since the metal turbo tube going into that boot (which was cut and extended by welding by “The Shop” during the initial rebuild) did not have this residue buildup. Since the intake appears not to have been cleaned externally either, it appears this is a remnant from before the rebuild. As such, it would be completely unacceptable and would contribute to undesirable wear and tear on the engine if ingested, which may have already been occurring.

I had requested that the engine be built to support at least 250hp, which I was told was readily achievable. The intake seems to not have been split, nor was it cleaned. The injectors were siliconed into the intake, and both front injectors were very loose in their sockets. Also, it does not appear the intake side of the head or intake manifold were ported, as discussed as part of the $2400 drive in/drive out performance rebuild.

It feels to me that “The Shop” has had my truck more over the last 7 months than I have, and the recent repeat issues with the miss being readily apparent each time I picked it up, when claimed to be solved, are contributing to my reticence to bring it back in for any work. Since I live about 25-30 miles from “The Shop”, each time I need to bring the truck in for repairs creates logistical challenges for me and my family.

Given the amount of churn and extensive shop time chasing easy-to-replicate issues which are stated as resolved when the truck is returned to me, but are not, and the number of issues this other shop found, I have lost confidence in the engine and the work completed.

I am convinced I’ll be chasing problems with this truck for quite some time, especially as I begin to increase the power output with an intercooler and turning up the turbo as originally planned and as we have discussed. My overriding concern that a significant engine failure is imminent, even if not tuned up any more, and will occur after the warranty expires.

The warranty from “The Shop” is also being eroded by the continuous trips to the shop where service durations have ranged from 1-3 weeks per event.

Attached is the work the truck needed in Arizona. This incident with my truck affected both my business and my personal commitments on my trip.

I support mistakes, but the extent of the issues, such as loose bolts on both sides of the engine, and the critical, visibly damaged parts not replaced (injector pigtails) clearly demonstrates that whomever worked on my truck did not apply normal and reasonable care or even basic automotive practices (Using a torque wrench to tighten the intake bolts).

The truck is now running better than it has since I got it back from “The Shop”. Even so, on the return trip, I only averaged around 15mpg, well under the 20mpg the truck achieved before the rebuild. I’m concerned that there are other issues contributing to the poor mileage, especially as the articles I’ve read after owners installed a TEC turbo had the truck getting significantly better gas mileage as well as power (going from 20 to 26mpg, for example).

I am highly concerned that the engine will suffer a major mechanical issue in or out of warranty, especially given the issues experienced so far.

I’ll be back in San Diego next week and look forward to your suggestions on resolving these issues. At this point, I almost want another shop to tear down the engine to verify the work, at “The Shop”’s expense, as well as reimbursing me for current applicable expenses (not the injectors).

The next day...

2010-10-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

I went to work the next day.

Just after 9am, I got a call from the shop. The #1 injector lead had come off the fuel injector. Wait, repeat that again? You see, injector leads have fancy clips that make this impossible.

Oh, it's broken and doesn't have the clip? Yes, please make it right.
The turbo just appears to be loose, we'll tighten it up for you.
The thermostat doesnt' look like it's been replaced (red RTV had last been used, that stuff hasn't been around for years). Ok, check it please.

A little while later, my phone rang again.
- 2 of your other injector leads are also missing the retaining clip and they are all very brittle. Ok, replace them all.
- Your injector's o-rings are completely shot (he gave them to me, they were uselessly hard and the injectors were RTV'd in, badly, by a previous repair). And they appear to be original, you should replace them. Since they were that far in, go ahead and install new injectors.
- Your thermostat was not changed, it's showing rust. Ok, new one please!

I love this shop. They kept me apprised, they told me how much things were going to cost BEFORE they did them, and then they delivered on that price. And they were timely and fast. They also showed me all my old parts (at my request - I brought some home in case I needed them for my impending discussion).

While they were at it, I asked them to fix and convert my truck's AC from R12 to R134A for the AC, but to bill that seperately. I was going to share some of my pain with the original shop, but the AC wasn't part of it.

When I got the truck back, it was running better. On the way home, it was managing about 15mpg on average, but still wasn't running as well as I had wanted.

The trip (saga) to Tucson

2010-10-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written, mostly because the truck has been in limbo as the it has gone back to the shop more than a few times since the last posting and I am really trying to keep this positive!

In June, I drove the 4Runner my home in San Diego, CA to Tucson, AZ. I'd driven it around town, and needed to run out to Tucson on business. I figured it'd be nice to get it on the highway to see how it performed on the open road. By now it had a couple thousand miles on the motor, and some highway miles would help seat things.

My last road trip was down I5 from Sacramento to San Diego, when I originally bought it. With about 212K on the clock and an original motor, an exhaust leak, and a turbo that didn't boost much. It got 20mpg for most of that trip, 16mpg for the tank over Grapevine and through LA, and would do just a smidge over 80, but didn't like it. It would tool along comfortably at 75 though. Grapevine had it struggling to eke out 50-55mph. That would not do!

Working with the shop, emissions were finally in line with where they should be on a new motor, and mpg had increased to the mid-teens. It seems that many folks are getting closer to the 20s, but I figured the engine was still new.

The fuel gauge doesn't work yet, the sender is a little off. At 10 gallons, the idiot light comes on, leaving about 7 in the tank. I'm only about 170 miles from Yuma. 16 miles*17 gallons= 270 miles/tank. So I filled up and promptly trundled off to Yuma.

The first thing I noticed is the truck was not happy on the open road. 80 was doable, but any more was too much to ask of it. Ok, note to self to discuss with the shop.

About 8 miles outside of Winterhaven (East of Yuma), the engine sputtered and died. It restarted, then repeated. I was able to coast to within a couple miles of an exit where I could see a Chevron sign. While I was calling AAA, a nice Highway Patrol officer pushed me into a gas station.

With a full tank it restarted. Let's see... 170/17 gallons... 10mpg?!? Note to self... (This happens a lot for a while).

From there, it was on towards Casa Grande. Another 170 miles, but there are some fuel stations before then. I reset the odometer and started keeping track of my mileage to avoid another issue.

As I was approaching Casa Grande, the sunset was beautiful. I missed a lot of it, because the truck started to miss. Once on the side of the road, I found the #2 and #3 spark plug leads had come off the spark plugs. Thank goodness it was easy, it was getting dark. Note to self...

My next stop was a town called Sahuarita, south of Tucson, AZ. Just South of Tucson, the truck started to miss very badly

As I left Phoenix, the truck started requiring more pedal to keep going. It was dark now, of course. As I passed Tucson headed south, the truck started running very weakly. Then it started to miss again. I pulled over, but the ignition leads were on tight. The turbo, however, was hanging loose.

It was late, but I called shop I knew in the area to save me.

Notes to self were piling up....

Turbo getting re-sealed, emissions part deux

2010-03-21T08:09:00.000-07:00

The truck's been at the shop about 2 weeks getting the turbo re-sealed. Emissions continue to be sketchy, turns out it's a valve that keeps pressure from getting routed to the EGR valve.

At the same time, they're swapping out the stock O2 bung for a smaller one so they can install a stock O2 sensor.

Fingers are crossed, but service continues to be slow. Any bets on how much this will all cost and whether the turbo will be fully covered?

Truck status, hanging starter

2010-02-26T05:20:00.000-08:00

Work has had me absolutely slammed. 17 hours on Sunday, probably because it's getting hard to think straight and I'm just getting slow. I'd rather be slinging code for that amount of time.

Saga not quite over yet, but waiting until it's solved and I can objectively review the situation. I will post an update.

The truck's not quite running right. It finally passed emissions with flying colors, but needs a "VSV" valve to do it again (how is this passing? Well it at least let me satisfy DMV and get the title finished over to my name.). I'm told Toyota don't make it anymore, but the dealer I called could get both VSV valves in a couple of days, so I need to follow up and find out what valve it really needs.

The shop also felt my O2 sensor was slow, so they swapped in a new one. The TEC turbo comes with a larger-than-stock O2 bung, so they installed a GM unit they felt was compatible. At light cruise on the highway, in any gear, it now feels like it's experiencing a lean surge, and gets jerky. Give it a little throttle and it goes away.

Gas MPG went up from 14 to 18, but then dropped back to 15 the next tank. This tank seems to be doing better. Neither one is the mileage I was hoping for, especially with 225s, no lift, and no ability to light 'em up down the block (it's a total dog off the lights and I can't imagine it being able to do a brake-stand).

The truck is running better under power since they looked at it last, tho. By the time I cross the intersection, it's starting to pull. But, again, not the power I was hoping for. 2.4 liters, turbocharged should be not that far off from my M3 (3.0 I6 240hp in US dress, 321hp if it was the Euro version). I'll give BMW credit, their German horses seem to be a lot bigger than these Japanese horses, the car pulls 23mpg driving it assertively, dipping to 19 if I'm really blurring the scenery, or a high of 28 if it's all slab. Almost 10mpg on a track day where the carpet is compressed all day long. I can't begin to imagine selling that car, it's such a great all-arounder.

The Toy's gearing and power band is great for cruising down the highway at 70-80+ though, which is important as there are big stretches of pavement between the dirt. However, hills and the OD are unhappy together. I need to shift out of overdrive several times on my way home, which I don't need to do in SWMBO's Yukon XL unless I'm in a hurry.

My goal was to build an engine that got good gas mpg, wasn't a twitchy monster offroad, but had decent power while getting out to the trails. We're not quite there yet...

OTOH, the Toy's stock turbo 2.4 was a meager 145hp... I'm looking forward to a dyno run, and I'll look for some online advice on what other changes I can make.

The turbo is leaking. Could be because the drain line was kinked, causing the truck to puff smoke coming to a stop, could just be a rebuild problem. Shop seems to be taking care of it (there was a question at one time), so that'll be cool (and one reason I paid instead of DIY. I hardly have time to drop the thing off again.)

The starter has started hanging (keeps trying to start after you release the key) so I'll be using these two links to see if I can sort out the problem. It's either a sticky contact or a sticky plunger.
http://www.yotatech.com/f116/starter-solenoid-contact-fix-193101/
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/Starter.shtml

It's off to the shop. Any bets how long they have it this time? :)

More goodies for the 4Runner

2010-01-10T23:14:00.000-08:00

We cracked 500 miles a week ago Friday, so it got its new catalytic converter. That quietened it up and seemed to give it more bottom end. Cool. I had them add a flex joint while they were at it. Cheap insurance for the exhaust manifold.

I'll post pics when I get a chance.

I've been out of town for a week, so some of the goodies I had ordered came in while I was out, all from the same seller.

- sunroof shield
- locks all around (so I only need one key)
- driver's mirror
- driver's power window switch (finally!!!)

The switch and driver's mirror were good buys. And I'm very happy to have the power window switch finally. That sucker was hard to hunt down. The sunroof visor will be nice to have in the hot sun here.

The seller did a good job packing the parts.

Sunroof shield

The shield was covered with that black mold you get in humid climates. I lived in Oregon for 10 years, so I'm well acquainted with the stuff.

I took a pic and I'll post it when I get a chance. It's still stained after being cleaned, has 3 holes in the material, and had some tarry black goo in a couple places. At least the mechanism works. I doubt I'll send it back, not worth the shipping. Maybe I'll cover it in plush velour... gaaa! Perish the thought!

Tailgate lock

The lock for the tailgate came with the whole "Toyota" plastic assembly as the seller couldn't figure out how to pop the lock off. I'd never been in one, so had no suggestions. The deal was to send mine back to him because of that. I am disappointed at the condition of that part and will be sending it back to him instead of mine (I figured out how to pop the lock out). The parts are from back east, so all the metal bits are rusted - including the light bulb sockets. The plastic part was in overall medium condition at best. The "Toyota" is more faded than my California truck's, which surprised me given how hard the sun beats down here. Maybe I'm not giving the east coast it's due when it comes to that kind of thing! LOL
And, to boot, the lock for the tailgate didn't work with the key supplied. Whoops!

PM sent, we'll see what comes from it.

225 miles and counting

2009-12-27T07:59:00.000-08:00

225 miles today. It's going much more slowly than anticipated as I just haven't had time to run it down the road. I may run up to Sun Valley today to look at some 31" tires and stock aluminum wheels, which will get it near time for an oil change.

It's developed a slow oil leak (couple of drops) when parked. Power seems to be getting better, which is cool. But MPG is horrible, last tank pulling around 14.5. Cripes, I do that in my 283hp Suburban. It's been all town and commuting, so the highway run is an opp to see if it's gone down that much since rebuilding it.

I'm going with "it's new and tight" and hope that I'm right. But it's an inauspicious start...

She is alive!!

2009-12-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

More challenges on the DMV front - you can't get a trip permit for more than 1 day if your vehicle is more than 60 days expired. Crap. Going to have to rack up all the miles on one day then so I can smog it. :(

It seems to be running well. The turbo actually has an effect now!! I can hear it spooling, which is nice.

I tell you, a good-running motor goes a long way to mitigating any frustrations.

It's not as powerful as I had expected given the head porting, the cam, the larger valves, and the bigger turbo and exhaust. OTOH, I'm still babying it. And I mean babying it. So maybe it is... :)

The Total Chaos motor mounts do pass vibration on. Going to have to find some rubber mounts for those. But it feels good to have a captive motormount instead of the non-captive stockers.

I'd say me likey!

Yaaay, it's ready. Wait, how much??!?!!

2009-12-12T05:32:00.000-08:00

I'm kicking myself very hard right now for not buying the turnkey 88 4runner with dual tcases, lockers, SAS, 37s, and the immaculate paint and interior and lots of other goodies. Sure, it wasn't a turbo, but I'd have spent less than I have on this truck and a motor, and this truck still needs a tranny soon, and, except for the hotter motor, is still bone stock.

Last time I checked, "$2400 drive in, drive out" usually meant you drove it in, they did the work, you wrote a check for $2400 plus some tax, maybe some shop supplies (I hate when they're not allocated in the estimate), and you took your truck home with a new motor.

However, I found out over the last couple of weeks that some key items were not included in this original drive-in/out estimate. Like a timing chain. Or an oil pump. Just before the motor is going to go back together is a hard time to find this out, since I'd already put together a budget.

Honestly, I'm choking on the price at the moment. It's more than double the $2400, when I expected we were going to add maybe another $1400-1600 tops! including all the extras I had asked for. I'll post the invoice later, first I want to go over it since the last written estimate I had listed some machine work that they weren't able to explain at the time.

Let me call out very clearly that I don't think they did anything it didn't need, so that's not my concern.

Now, granted, I had them add some stuff - Total Chaos motor mounts, rebuild my turbo, cat-back exhaust, etc. - but those were factored in extra on my end, obviously not part of the $2400.

On top of that, it ended up needing a head, and some other parts. However, from when *I* worked on cars, I expect that kind of interaction to go like this:

Shop: Hi Eric, it's James at the Truck Shop. Your 4runner's needs XYZ, which will add $X to your cost, includes blah, blah, blah, bringing your total price to $Y. Is that OK?
Eric: Thanks for the call! I was prepared that it might need XYZ. question, question... What was the new total for the engine again? OK, go for it, thanks!

This gets repeated any time there's any significant change to the bottom line. During a rebuild, that might occur 2-3 times depending on how many surprises there are.

Well, we're now at the end, and no use crying over spilled milk, especially since I helped spill some of it by not pushing very hard for am updated bottom line price. While I had asked several times, I only got one - which summarily freaked me out since the price had more than doubled. I thought we had fixed it. I can't imagine what my total price would be if we hadn't had that conversation.

I'll post the invoice after I pick it up and provide more details on how I think it ended up here, and ideas on how to avoid this kind of nasty surprise right before Christmas when $$ is already tight.
And the money flow is not over yet. I'm not told it still needs to be broken in, then a cat installed, then smogged. I had asked for it to be smogged before I picked it up and was told "No problem." and watched him add a note to my file.

It seems the shop knows what they're doing technically, and they do come highly recommended, so I'm going to reserve overall judgement for now, but the customer-interaction model is leaving me feeling extremely frustrated and disappointed.

But I am skeert to go back to them for the next set of planned mods (Supra AFM, intercooler, turn up the boost, etc.) if this is the interaction I should expect...

All I have to say is this motor better be the cat's meow, not burn oil, reliable, long lasting, grumble, grumble...

Still waiting...

2009-12-08T07:36:00.000-08:00

I called Friday and was told the exhaust manifold had a crack they didn't notice, they needed to weld it and that took most of the day.
What about the 2nd manifold I'd brought?
Oh, that one had a crack too. (???)

I'm confused since welding cast iron is actually pretty straight-forward, and with the new turbo, the manifold should be cake to remove.

The time I built a turbo manifold for my motorhome, I used a Chevy 6.5 diesel manifold (cast) as the base, chopped a hole in the side, and welded on bits to make the turbo fit onto the side of the manifold. I couldn't bolt the turbo to the stock location, the motorhome floor got in the way.

But that took just a couple of hours (you preheat, weld, postheat) and was quite a bit of work compared to a simple crack.

If it weren't so warm in SD, I'd think I was getting snowed...

It's Tuesday morning and no call that the truck is ready yet, plus no commitment on when it would be ready when I called last week.

I'm getting concerned. The truck better run awesome...

Limited progress

2009-11-29T11:48:00.001-08:00

No progress in the past week since redoing the list of what needs to be done on the truck.

I should hear more Monday. Either way, I’ll stop by and see where we’re at and get a due date.

Polishing the details

2009-11-11T07:02:00.000-08:00

Finally made it out the the Truck Shop yesterday evening. James was cool and stayed a bit later than his usual closing time due to my late arrival. We could have gotten done faster, but he let me pick his brain a bit too.

The turbo's back from getting rebuilt, and he's getting it to me at his cost, which saves me $50. Sweet. I can spend it on the new head the truck needed. Looks like the crack in the last one was fatal.

The tech working on my truck had created laundry list of things the truck needed, but nothing nitty. I used to make the same list for customers when I worked on their cars. Personally, I find that kind of list gratifying. It tells me something about the tech, and the shop I'm at.

Rasmussen BMW in Portland, OR was like that, and that has been the absolute best dealer/customer relationship I've had. Well, apart from Rocky's Shell in Green Valley on Esperanza.

It was a good list, but also long. Going to be spending some more $$, but it's $$ well-spent. They're also cutting me a deal on list prices for factory Toyota parts, gotta love that.

We also decided on Total Chaos motor mounts. I hear 4-cylinder motors transfer more vibes with them, but they're captive mounts for when they break - unlike the stockers, there's nothing keeping it together when the rubber gives. With dual transfercases, we'll want a better mount. If they're too vibration-y, I'll find a rubber bushing that fits and press it in.

While I was there, he showed me some 3.4L conversions they'd done (start with a V6 truck!). They had some pretty rad rides in the back. Some monsters and some sleepers. Awesome.

We also went over a few suspension options so I can start budgeting. I can only do one major upgrade at a time, and this one's wiping out the budget.

I'll be posting more on that later, as that's one of the upcoming upgrades. Some of the companies he talked about had not shown up in my web search. Some, like Total Chaos, had.

They can also mill a Tacoma 3rd member to fit my truck, so that provides another answer to the locker problem.

I'm pretty excited to be getting it back next week.

Well, I'm not picking it up yet

2009-11-08T09:52:00.001-08:00

The flu ran through my household, knocking me out of commission Monday and Tuesday. I was able to work from home, but I wasn't going anywhere. Then work conspired to keep me in the office past the Truck Shop's closing time.

Let's try it again this Monday!

Exciting!!! It'll be ready soon!

2009-11-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

I spoke with James last week, looks like it may be together this week or next. Again, I'm not in a rush, so don't feel they're dragging their feet!

I'm stopping by the shop Monday to talk about the exhaust. The TEC turbo downpipe is a sewer-pipe compared to the stock exhaust. Which is too bad, since the stock stuff is in good shape. But we're looking to improve power and MPG, so there we go.

"What about ROI on the MPG increase vs new exhaust costs?" you ask? Maybe, maybe not. But MPG is the gift that keeps giving back, and I hope to have this truck a long, long time - like give it to my grandkids long...

I can't stand loud or buzzy vehicles, so I'm a little nervous about what we put on there (just a little, after all, it's just an exhaust, not a life-threatening operation. :) )

We had a Gibson cat-back on our '93 Suburban that sounded fantastic. Across the empty sections of NV or CA, we'd turn the radio off late at night to hear the motor running. Not too loud, not obnoxious, not tinny, just awesome.

The Remus on the motorcycle is borderline. It sure sounds good. But, with the stock exhaust, I've ridden past officers writing other people tickets, and they never even looked up. With the Remus, I get some glances. I learned long ago - avoid attracting attention, fly under the radar. :)

Even more important is driving it on a cross-country trip and being able to enjoy it.

I'm really picky about this, so here's hoping there's a good solution!!!

The engine build progresses!

2009-11-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

I've decided to keep the turbo at stock PSI during the breakin period, then we'll go through and do the intercooler, turn up the turbo, and add a Supra AFM later. If it runs great, maybe much later - the stock AT is still in there and she's a bit tired.

Anyone know where I can pick up a complete R151F/tcase/bellhousing/shifters/salve cylinder/clutch/flywheel/d-shafts/pedals assembly for under $1200 delivered to 92065? :-)

Since I was leaving town and didn't want to be the schmuck holding up the guys at the Truck Shop, I asked him what he recommended for the turbo. He offered to send the turbo to Turbo City for me. I've used Turbo City before on a Spearco turbo I had installed on my normally aspirated diesel motorhome (that turbo was the absolute mostess, bestess upgrade ever), so that worked great for me.

I also told James I wasn't in a hurry when I dropped it off, if that was going to save me any $$.

He buys a used turbo off the internet...

2009-11-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

I recently picked up aTEC turbo from a seller onYotaTech at about a 20% savings, plus with a good modd'd exhaust manifold.

4 months old, blah, blah, motor threw a rod, blah, blah. The guy seemed to know his stuff, and had me feeling warm and fuzzy about the turbo since he's built a few motors for locals in his area, so I didn't ask too many tech questions about it.

Yeah, oops.

When it got here, the exhaust side was full of oil and the impeller had a ton of radial play (but no lateral play, thank goodness). The seller was apparently the guy rebuilding the motor for the owner, and was using the sale to defray the costs on a new 22RE (no turbo). Turns out the owner was using the truck to tow heavy things. Uh, not a good idea with a gasoline turbo engine, your turbo will be unhappy. Like this one. He seemed like a very decent sort, and told me he'd make it right.

Two weeks later, very little progress, but reasonably good response time to my calls or emails, then he fell off the face of the planet. Which really surprised me. Since I was going to be within 60 miles of his hometown in a few weeks for my brother's wedding, and I'd paid by credit card, I wasn't overly stressed. 2 weeks later, I get an email apologizing for not getting back to me, he's been in the hospital with H1N1 flu, give him 2 more weeks. Whoa!

I agreed, but told him I'd have to file a Paypal incident (which is totally useless, but keeps your ducks in a row legally - this was a chunk of change after all). 2 weeks to the day, I got a refund for $350, the cost of a rebuild for the turbo, which is what I had asked for.

Overall my internet purchases have been gone well, I've only been taken advantage of one time. But, as you can see, sometimes you have to work for your savings!

In this case, I figure I saved about $400 or so from buying this turbo from LC Engineering.

However, I think I could have been $ ahead letting the Truck Shop source a turbo for me. In the end, I think it'll be close to a wash, at least that keeps me sleeping easier at night. :)

Hat tip to Brian, thanks for taking care of your buyer, and hope you feel better man!

So, who rebuilds the engine?

2009-11-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

The last engine I rebuilt was when I was 17. It was a 2.8L Ford V6 in my Cobra Mustang II (yes, a V6 in a Cobra. My, how far Ford sunk). One of the guys I went to high school with had rebuilt it, and the cam bolt backed out through the front timing cover. He was a good enough guy, this just wasn't his thing I guess. Once I got in there, I found a lot of liquid RTV (orange) floating around too. :) Kids...

I was flat broke, so I used some shortcuts. I used oversize rings instead of oversized pistons, etc. But I did it completely on my own in my parent's garage.

That engine went at least 55K miles after the rebuild, and they were very hard miles with many of them spent 1000rpm over the factory redline, sometimes for upwards of an hour. The overbore was 60-thousandths, as I was the second rebuilder of that block. That was apparently too much for that motor since it would get hot on the highway at ultralegal speeds (I was young). I'd have to slow down for a while to cool it off, then back on it as the needle slowly crept higher and higher and higher...

Overall, not a bad experience on the motor. That Mustang ended up experiencing a lot of other issues. Add the other Fords I used to wrench on, and that pretty much set me against Ford ownership in general. Sure, I'll take a GT-40 or an early Bronco, but overall? Nah.

The last motor I R&R'd was in my 88 K5 Blazer after a quicky lube place didn't remember to put oil back in it. The only oil change that truck had that I didn't do, even. Wow, was that a fiasco.22 miles after I left their shop, with 80K miles on the clock, it blew a rod through the side of the block. And no oil leaked out with that rod. I usually get 250K+ out of my small block Chev's, so this really caused me some unhappiness.

The last transmission I did was in our '93 Burb at 176K. I used a Jet Transmission (4L60E) and it was fantastic. Unfortunately, when the Blazer needed one, I listened to a guy who knew a guy... the shop in Molalla, OR really screwed it up and nearly set the truck on fire because they forgot to install a filter, which caused the trans to spit up ATF all over the engine bay while I was driving home in the dark from picking it up). Then that shop blew out the rear end "test driving" it.

4 aborted transmissions later, I took it to 4Wheel Parts Wholesaler in Portland and let them install a Jet transmission (what I should have bought in the first place). After the 5th time the tranny almost fell out, they threatening to void my warranty because they couldn't screw in some bolts right. That really put me over the top with them. I told them to give me back all of my labor $ and took it home and fixed it myself. No more problems until I sold the truck.

Given these experiences with farming out work to others, I really wrestled with what to do on this project. Of course, not all my experiences have been unpleasant.

Rasmussen BMW in Portland, OR was just plain fantastic with my M3. They worked on my car the way I would work on my car, and at reasonable prices for most services (I do my own brakes tho). I can't say enough good things about them. I can see why they've won the national #1 spot in their size dealership year after year.

I also want my kids to have that "I can handle it" perspective. And to be able to do their own work when shops screw it up.

I priced out the parts, found some recommended solution & providers for parts kits, and talked to several different local and national engine rebuilders about what I wanted and what they recommended. What I found is that there isn't a lot of experience with the RTE motors, as I expected since they're not very common.

ToySport gave me a real warm and fuzzy for building a 300hp turbo motor that was reliable. However, the entry price was steeper than I wanted to pay for the long block. Since that didn't include a new R&R, turbo, intercooler, AFM, etc., I was going to spend a bit more to get it completed.

If the economy hadn't nose-dived, I probably would have gone with them. Their price was actually reasonable considering all the goodness they were going to put in it. I recommend checking them out if you need a hot motor. Check out ToySport's tech notes on the 22RTE for more warm-and-fuzziness.

What made my decision for me is that I just don't have any spare time to dedicate to yanking a motor and rebuilding it. I have 3 kids at home (one in college) and we're running from practice to game to practice to friend's house. Many Sundays you can find me and my son at the dirtbike track, etc., the holidays are coming up, the ultra-busy season at work is starting up, and my HOA can be militant about projects like this.

In the end, I decided to go with a local shop calledThe Truck Shop. They came well-recommended by some of the local Toyota guys, and they also apparently do a lot of prep work for many of the desert racers. Hmmm... I'll want to be putting a long travel kit on this anyways, like maybe a Total Chaos Caddy Gen 2 setup...

Their labor rate for R&R was also reasonable, and they would warranty the whole thing for 12/12, even with the perf mods we were talking about. They were one of 2 rebuilders who would do that, everyone else tossed the warranty as soon as I said "porting?"

When I spoke with James he seemed to have a solid handle on the things an RTE needs, including how to turn it up, what intercooler to use, AFM changes needed to support the power increase, etc. I poked a few questions at him to get his thoughts. He was patient in answering my questions, and took some time going over the truck with me when I dropped it off.

So, it's going to get be ported, balanced, oversize valves, hi flow oil pump, etc.

Whee!!

Engine rebuild goals and objectives

2009-11-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

The motor in the 'runner is pretty tired. It'll hold 80 all day long (at 20mpg no less!), but the grade up Grapevine really wore it out. It's also not what one would call fast to 60. And I'm not sure it can spin a tire in dirt (considering they're 215 street tires, this is a sad, sad day).

Before starting an engine rebuild, you have to decide what's important. All out power? Economy? Cost? Pick any two. Ok, maybe just one!

In my case, I don't need all-out power (I have other vehicles, one of which will pull a sub-3-second 0-60). But it does need to run good. I don't expect 40mpg, but mid-20s would be very nice. I don't want to have to run premium gas, except when I want to (e.g. when I turn the PSI up on the turbo). And I have a lot of expensive things to do to the truck (long travel kit, dual tcases, convert to 5 speed, fix the AC, etc.)

So, in a nutshell I wanted a reliable engine that puts out decent power, over 200hp, and which delivers decent mileage.

Impossible? After all, in the 80s, it took at least 5.0 liters to deliver 200hp (Mustang).

Consider this - My '95 BMW M3 puts out a rated 240hp and gets 28mpg on the highway (23 mixed). The guys with slightly newer automatic and 6-speed versions (overdrives) are seeing 32mpg on the highway. It does, however, need premium. 87 octane reduces the mpg, and power has a big flat spot in the middle. I can live with running premium though (with 125K miles, I certainly have enjoyed living with it!).

The M3 is a 3.0 liter six, the 4Runner a 2.4 liter four. Certainly there are some key design objective differences BMW and Toyota faced, such as one is in a truck designed to make torque, the other is in a sports sedan.

BUT - back in the mid-90s, European companies were scared of US litigation, so we got extremely watered down versions of their sports cars.

How watered down? The Euro M3 3.0 liter engine puts out 321hp vs mine's 240hp. Pretty watered down. Even so, the motor in my M3 is a dream to drive. It pulls all the way through redline, is torquey, and very responsive. And dyno runs show these cars might be underrated a bit. Fun, fun, fun!!

So... rebuild the motor myself, or have someone do it?

Now that's a dilemma. More on that soon!

About that rear window...

2009-09-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

When I picked up the Toy, the seller had indicated the rear window didn't like to go up or down without whapping the panel where the relay sat.

Sure enough, it was recalcitrant at best.

Seeing as I've been getting a lot of input from the Yotatech folks, I shared my solution with them. Far better write-up below.
---------------

I managed to get the window down pretty readily, but I couldn't get it to go up for the life of me.

I assumed the problem was related to the "Rear Door" light in the dash being on. That was driving me nuts, it wasn't lit the night I picked the truck up and I couldn't figure out how to make it go off.

Ok, time to pull up the wiring diagram (which you can find online by Googling for the service manual. Most of the Toyota sites have sticky links to them too).

Looking through the Factory Service Manual's wiring diagram, I figured that out right quick.

Ready?

LOCK the door (err, tailgate)... deerrrr.

I used to have a fullsize Blazer with an electric window and it didn't have a rear door lock, but the window wouldn't go up if the gate wasn't fully closed. I had assumed it was the door sensor that was acting up. And that's how past experience can get you in trouble! LOL

After that, though, it was still hit and miss - which it had been to go down.

The relay is behind the trim panel on the driver's side, and behind the driver's seat - about where a rear passenger's knee would go. Being a West-coast truck, it had zero external corrosion.

However, the [very thick] blue/black strip wire's relay-side connector was corroded, so I had to scrape that clean. The connector in the chassis-side looked fine, but a little blued from heat. Poor connections get hot.

After that, when I left the key on and twisted the relay 90 degrees each way, some of the sub-relays in it clicked on and off. The connection was still not solid.

Pulling/pushing the individual wires didn't help me narrow it down. But taking apart the relay and tracing the leads to the single relay clicking tracked down the wires I needed to pay attention to).

The ends of the connectors in the chassis side looked like they tend to connect with the spring-sides, not the broad flat sides, so I tweaked the ends of the connectors on the chassis connector to give them a slight bow at the front. Now the connection is decent and I can't make the relay click on and off.

Next time I get in there (when I do the front seatbelts), I'll add some dielectric grease to help it long-term.

It beats some of the solutions I saw with cutting open the relays, or creating your own relay array (the big relay box really contains 3-4 smaller relays).

3 weeks later and the rear window is working fine. Eeep! Did I jinx it?!?!

Let's start fixing things!

2009-09-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, what's the first thing you do with a used car you bought?

Change the oil, the fan belts, maybe? Nope! This truck's going to get an engine first.
My thought process goes like this. If I put a new turbo on, the head gasket will leak. Or, worse, a rod will find a new home outside the block. It's a decent running motor (220K), and a head gasket will take most of a Saturday to do and I'll be much of the way into the motor... Let's just do it right!

Ok, that leaves... Wash it?

That's right!! This thing needed a bath in the worst way, inside and out. The outside was very grimy from its environment. It looked like it had been parked in an industrial yard for the past few months and the white was dingy through the accumulated grime.

We spent $10 at the local self-serve car wash hosing away the grime. The underside was pretty clean though. It's not spotless, but it's much cleaner.

The interior, as you saw from previous pics, was in a world of hurt. Cleaning was not going to help that rear carpet.

I started casting about for sources for interior parts. My local yards had little, and the ones that had stuff were pretty proud of what they did have.

So I started casting about on Yotatech, Pirates, and other sites. And Google.

And then I completely, totally lucked out. I turned out to be the 2nd poster for a guy who had a clean 89 (2 years new than mine) with the same paint scheme and interior color. Sadly, it was not power windows.

BUT! He was parting out whatever he could before he took advantage of the US Grubbimint's Cash4clunkers program. (The USG spent $3B of our money for about $380M in benefit. And a lot of new Japanese cars on the road. You decide of that was good for US citizens as a whole...).

Personally, I support people taking advantage of the program. It's a business decision, not a moral value.

This worked out to my incredible benefit as I got new seatbelts (all 5), headrests (my driver's seat looked like it had yellow dandruff), new REAR carpet (woo-hoo!!!), some rear topper trim, his radio, and some other goodies we'll be installing later.

Here's the detritus from the original headrest on the driver's side and why I really, really wanted new headrests. Not shown is that the design in the fabric is sewn in opposite of the direction of the fabric on the seat. I'll likely swap covers later. Much later.

Andrew is quite mechanical and I frequently find him swapping trucks on his skateboards when I'm pulling the motorcycle into the garage after a day at work.

Here he is pulling the driver's door apart so we could see how clean we could get the door panel. It came out pretty clean, but I didn't take a picture as it was dark by the time I put it back on after Andrew had headed off to bed since it was a school night. Dawn is amazing stuff (hey, they use it to clean oil spills).

Can you tell the new rear fender carpet from the old?

One other part I got was the rear trim for the topper. Someone had cracked both of the originals. Look at the dust/grime on it. That's all over the rest of the interior, and is much worse on the dash (the dash is clean in the original sales pics, so I'm guessing it's from the guy I bought it from).

The bed looked really good (eat your heart out, East-coasters! )

The seat-backs had a light dusting of rust, so I cleaned them off and painted them. I had some bronze I have no idea how I got, so I used that color! LOL

Rear carpet before

Rear carpet after. The new carpet was in awesome shape for being in a truck with 190K, but still benefited from a good cleaning (with the help of some Dawn, a scrub brush, and a hose!).

And, finally, here's the tail end of this relatively easy project - the tailgate!

Here's the original tailgate

Here's the new tailgate carpet. FYI, the ugly one above cleaned up pretty well with Dawn, a brush, and a hose, but the vinyl surround was still pretty hacked... and the new one was still prettier.

In the week since doing this, I've decided a carpeted tailgate isn't something I'm in love with. I expect an alternative solution to eventually find its way here. It's too hard to keep remembering not to put dirty stuff on the tailgate.

There's nothing like the satisfaction of doing something so easy, so cheap, that is so effective. I really got lucky on the carpet deal, but I'm quite pleased with the outcome, especially given it was not work I was expecting to have to do when I originally flew out to pick up the truck.

It's great to have another truck, and another insured 4-wheeler in the family. It makes it real easy to for SWMBO and I to be in different places with different #s of kids at the same time!

Next up (probably, none of this is hard and fast)- rip out the seats and front carpet, clean the rear seats (yes, more oil stains), swap seat belts, and keep doing my homework on what to do with the engine.

So there I am, waiting at the airport

2009-09-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

I sent the seller a PM and he called me up and we talked. He provided a lot of detail, I shared a story about my 600 mile round trip (driving) from San Diego to Visalia to pick up a 4Runner that was neither as described, nor had a clear title (How does "Do you have a clear title?" "Yes, I do." become "I have paperwork so *you* can get a title."?!?!?).

He gave a detailed description of the dents, the dings, what worked, what didn't.

I get to the airport in San Diego, and the security line is the longest I have ever seen. I haven't missed a flight in many, many years (and fly about every 2 weeks for work).

Wholly mackerel!! It's easy to tell there is no way I'm making it. I check and there are 2 more flights out. I end up with the 2nd-to-last standby seat on the next flight. I am a very frequent flier on, and a fan of, Southwest and I like to think that helped! Since the original flight was delayed anyways, I'm only about 15 minutes later than I would have been anyways. As it is, this flight lands 1 hour after the earlier flight was scheduled. Whew!

At the airport in Sacramento, I quickly recognized the 4Runner chugging up to meet me. No smoke, good. Looked like the pics from the outside. Good.

Dude (name with-held to protect the not-quite-so-innocent) looked like my kind of guy. Bald, tats, working guy. He shook my hand when I got in and we introduced ourselves.

Now I used to work on cars for a living, but I always washed my hands and arms before getting into my ride home (well, any ride, actually). This fellow had just gotten out of work and I now had elevator hydraulic oil on my hands from the handshake. As you can imagine, this kinda got around on the interior too...

Lesson 1 - "Does the interior still look like it does in the pictures you posted?" Answer: You decide

Yes, that's from his tool bag.

Lesson 2 - "What's missing that should be there?" When I got there, I found out that the driver's window/door lock switch was missing. This part is turning out to be particularly troublesome to find (it lays in the door). And it's $225 at the dealer, I found out later. Yes, I'm still looking for one, that's a lot of green! For now I'm using jumper wires to move the windows up and down. What a pain! LOL

Story? "It was broken and I was trying to fix it in my wife's car, laid it on the seat, went somewhere, came back and someone stole it." Or your buddy has it, maybe?

Lesson 3 - "Do all the key locks work?" I knew the rear window had issues going up and down, so I didn't try it. But I did ask "Can I make the window go up and down with tailgate switch?" Answer: "No"

Is that a lie? Why, you ask? Because the key I was given only worked in the driver's door and ignition. Nice.

Excluding these tidbits, though, it was as described, it ran OK, and it didn't leak. We did the deal and I was ready for my drive home!!

A known issue was that the gas gauge wasn't working as expected, so I'd have to go off mileage. Looks like a sending unit problem as it reads fine to 3/4 tank, then thinks it's empty. I can deal with this (I think!).

I gassed it up, threw Flat-Face-Gary on the windscreen and asked him to get me home the fastest way possible.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my multi-outlet cigarette lighter, so I had to alternate between the V1 (radar detector, world's best, get one!) and FlatFace when his battery tired.

After about 120 miles, I stopped for gas. At 80, I was pulling slightly better than 20mpg. Rock. On.

Turbo boost would not exceed about 30%, but that was probably due to the exhaust leak. And the 220K on the truck. :) Since a new turbo was in the plans, this really didn't bother me. And it was no surprise, obviously.

The ride was relatively uneventful. Relatively excludes:

FlatFace rerouted me due to an accident in LA. At the whatever/I-10 interchange in LA, I completely launched that poor truck well into the air. The shocks are "a bit" worn, so it pogos a bit over bumps, and, with the worn shocks, it compressed fully into the dip, and then LAUNCHED. I just about hit my head on the roof, which is hard to do with a shoulder belt on. Semis must hate that junction.
Right after that I got gas, and then proceeded to, like a dork, drive past 2 officers with my headlights off (at 11pm). I'm too used to my newer cars which turn on the lights FOR you! D'oh!
For the finale to the detour, FlatFace routed me into what appeared to have been some gang violence. Cops everywhere, roads blocked off, body under a sheet in the road behind a car with holes in it. Garmin might want to consider an "Avoid high crime areas" feature!! =8-O Right about then, I was pretty bummed California makes it so hard to get a CCW.

A lot of the route was familar since I had just driven most of it to get to Visalia for that title-less 4Runner.

The long slog up Grapevine did stretch the truck's abilities, but I was able to pull 55ish over most of it without working the truck too hard. MPG dropped to 16.7 for that tank. We did bounce down the south side of Grapevine a bit, as a precursor the the I10 incident.

Most of the ride was done at 8-9mph over with few issues, just cruising with the flow. I got home about 3AM. Much to SWMBO's chagrin. She had wanted me to pull over and sleep. I like long drives (1000 miles on the motorcycle in a day is a good start!), and wasn't tired, so I just drove on through. Much longer though and I would have pulled off for a nap.

Ahhhhh, it was great to be home!!! Though I'd only left at 6pm the night before!

After months of searching, I found my truck!

2009-09-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

You know how it is. You want to find the right vehicle to start your project with.

After watching more than one Toyota climb up torturous, rocky hills with all 4 tires spinning like crazy while I was stuck at the bottom with a broken axleshaft (well, 3wd), I've wanted a Toyota. And I always wanted one with a removable top too.

So I started hunting for them several months ago. My friends were also on the lookout for me, generally sending me good hits.

While it would have been more economical to start with a fully built truck, I wanted something that the kids and I could work on together. While money is certainly tight thanks to learning the hard way about Alt-A loans and refi'ing into a fixed rate, losing our the options that come with "first money down", I'm looking at this as part of my kid's education. We're fortunate, the rest of our vehicles are in pretty good shape.

I'd been watching several trucks which were having a hard time selling, while using http://crazedlist.org/ to keep looking for new postings.

The one at Pirate4x4 had been posted for many months, had a blown exhaust gasket, and was gradually coming down in price, but was still too much. It turned out to be like my motorhome. Watch them long enough, eventually the price becomes right. Or someone snaps it up before you do!

I'd about given up on it when my buddy Brendan re-sent this one to me. And this time, it was within striking range of my budget for a foundation. Even better, it had the cleanest interior of just about any sub-$5000 4Runner I'd seen so far.

So I called the owner up, asked the relevant questions (do you have a clear title in hand? Really? Does the rear window work?), and made arrangements to fly to Sacramento to get it.

Here are the pictures from his ad. Why is it so many people cut off parts of the truck? Is there something wrong with the front end? How about the rear end?

Sweet looking ride!

As sometimes happens when you get on a plane to buy something, I was in for a bit of a surprise. AKA, more questions I learned I need to ask.