I’ve had a lot going on this week. After picking up the 4Runner Monday, I dove right in. Rear diff fluid change, transfer case fluid change, greased the driveshaft zerk fittings, and front diff fluid to come soon (I had to cut the front skid off to access it, as it was bent near the front passenger mounting bolt). The one philosophy that I fortunately have taken to heart is heat, penetrating oil, and patience. I’ve only broken one bolt so far (aside from the two license plate bolts) and heat/PB blaster have been my two best friends.

Tonight a couple friends came over (one owns a 2001 4Runner lightly built, the other a 2008 Tacoma pretty heavily built) to assist with the exhaust manifold replacement. Although I was on the struggle bus on my back working on rusted exhaust bolts, one of my cohorts were able to get 4 of the manifold studs out (the nuts pulled the studs, as expected). Something else we decided to do was remove the strut assembly as I’m replacing them with an 887/5100 combo (not a lot of 4th gen data available but I’ll play test subject. Dobinsons makes a similar offering that’s what I’m looking for but this setup is on the cheap, used). The tophat had literally fused to the strut “bucket” and after 30+ minutes of persuasion, it finally separated. I would like everyone to note the red circle (attached). This is the area that I would recommend using a hardened chisel and hammer on. The one thing that I learned tonight is that it takes a lot of persuasion all around the tophat before you hit two taps on that area to break it loose. Please don’t ever hit that spot first or it may separate too easily, without enough struggle.

If the passenger side gives me the same trouble, I may lose sanity. Fortunately, I have the cheat code now.

At the end of the day, we had enough choice beverages to keep the mood relaxed and laid back tonight. There are 4 nuts/studs to get out and the manifold is free. I’ll update in a couple days with good news (hopefully).

Side note- I installed new garage lighting Wednesday which was a helpful addition to the project. I will again add that nearly 220k mile 2003 exhaust bolts earn a lot of four letter words when being “removed”.

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