Gimli's Surprisingly Light Overlanding Build

Post Elephant Hill Upgrades

In early September I had a friend from CA manage to luck into permits to White Rim Trail and Elephant Hill the week of labor day. I geared up from ABQ, met him there, and had a socially distanced adventure through Canyon Lands.



In that last picture, as I was coming back over SOB hill, I got stuck. I wanted to go over the obstacle one way, buddy convinced me of another line, I should have stuck with my gut xD. Oh well.

Anyway, when I got home, I had three things that needed to be fixed.

On the first, when I was going up hill, my radiator cap failed. Added some water, which was enough to get me out of the back country. Got a new cap and more radiator fluid in Moab and was good to go. My engine ran cooler after spraying fluid everywhere than my buddy's jeep did with everything working :doh: Moral of the story, after 175k miles change out your radiator cap.


The biggest thing that needed to be fixed was the rear control arm mounts. They took a serious beating, especially since the Eibach rear spring was seriously low. It looked like someone had taken a can opener to the mounts. Thankfully, no cracks and none of the main mount was bent. I bought some armor from MetalTech for them. Its a simple bolt on solution. Took me 20 minutes to install, and now its safe.



The other big issue was the rear springs. At one point, I parked next to a stock 4runner, and loaded down my rear bumper was lower than stock :faint: . So, I needed to upgrade the rear springs somehow. I looked on the forums here, and found some Sway-Away rear springs on the forum here. Bought them, replaced the Eibach springs, and sold the Eibachs on Craigslist. Costed me like 40$ net.


New springs are about 1 inch taller, and significantly stiffer. End result is a much nicer ride, and it can handle a lot more weight.

Great build. I really like your approach.

Sweet build. Will definitely follow this.

I was thinking of getting some Dobinsons for my runner but still gotta figure out what I wanna do with the thing, I know for sure I wanna do some overlanding and light crawling, I'll figure it out eventually.

Nice build, really like what your doing. You said that you had loaded a 265/70/18 spare. I dint think a tire that size would fit underneath. You running a factory hitch?

WyEast-08 said:

Nice build, really like what your doing. You said that you had loaded a 265/70/18 spare. I dint think a tire that size would fit underneath. You running a factory hitch?

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I am running a factory v8 hitch. I had to air the tire down to about 22 PSI to get it up in there, and then air it back up. It is super tight, but it fits.

I've actually been surprised how well the v8 hitch protects the spare.

KumaBiscuit91 said:

Sweet build. Will definitely follow this.

I was thinking of getting some Dobinsons for my runner but still gotta figure out what I wanna do with the thing, I know for sure I wanna do some overlanding and light crawling, I'll figure it out eventually.

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Dobinsons is the best option on the market as far as I can tell unless you want to spend King or Icon money. The only reason I didn't go with them is I wanted an adjustable front. I have a bumper on the way, and my plan is to put the bumper and a winch on, replace my worn out LCAs, and move my front struts up a notch.

I guess as long as you have on-board air this would work This is good to know as I am thinking of 32" tires. did you get much of a gas mileage hit going with the skinny 33" tires?

WyEast-08 said:

I guess as long as you have on-board air this would work This is good to know as I am thinking of 32" tires. did you get much of a gas mileage hit going with the skinny 33" tires?

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I aired the tire back up once it was in position, so I'm carrying a fully aired spare with me. It pops out easy too.

So I took about a 2 MPG hit going to bigger tires, but I am a really bad reference for this. I don't know if it's the altitude, or if we're using weird gas, but every car I have here in ABQ gets straight trash gas mileage, and I get better mileage going to Texas or Utah...

When I aired the tires up to like 45 psi and drove Albuquerque to South Texas, I started the trip at 14 mpg and ended it at about 17-18. Also, it's very speed sensitive. I lose about 1mpg going from 70 to 75.

gimlithepirate said:

I aired the tire back up once it was in position, so I'm carrying a fully aired spare with me. It pops out easy too.



So I took about a 2 MPG hit going to bigger tires, but I am a really bad reference for this. I don't know if it's the altitude, or if we're using weird gas, but every car I have here in ABQ gets straight trash gas mileage, and I get better mileage going to Texas or Utah...



When I aired the tires up to like 45 psi and drove Albuquerque to South Texas, I started the trip at 14 mpg and ended it at about 17-18. Also, it's very speed sensitive. I lose about 1mpg going from 70 to 75.

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It's the ethanol they put in the gas........ I have zero proof of this.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

montijo505 said:

It's the ethanol they put in the gas........ I have zero proof of this.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

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LOL, I think it's probably we're running closer to the old CO gas than what TX runs, plus the altitude. ABQ is as high as Denver altitude wise, which is brutal. You lose 7% per thousand feet, so at 5k feet your down about 30% on power.

gimlithepirate said:

Initially seemed fine, but a few miles down the road, VSC and ATRAC lights started blinking. The car would also in some cases suddenly lock the center diff. Oops.

Thankfully (?) the big problem appears to have self healed. No more lights, and I haven't had any in a while. Hopefully they stay away. I did however check all of my oils after the incident, and sure enough the rear diff had water in it.

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This does not sound like a rear diff issue. Sounds more like the transfer case actuator. There is a thin breather hose on the top of transfer case actuator. Make sure that it is not loose or cracked. I got my actuator flooded during a deep water crossing (already had a breather on the rear diff) and had all the 4WD and VSC lights come on and was stuck in 4low. Had to tow it home and work on the actuator at home (timing was off). If you did have water in the actuator there is a chance of corrosion if you don't dry it out well. But it's hard to crack it open without gears falling out so be careful.

BagiMT said:

This does not sound like a rear diff issue. Sounds more like the transfer case actuator. There is a thin breather hose on the top of transfer case actuator. Make sure that it is not loose or cracked. I got my actuator flooded during a deep water crossing (already had a breather on the rear diff) and had all the 4WD and VSC lights come on and was stuck in 4low. Had to tow it home and work on the actuator at home (timing was off). If you did have water in the actuator there is a chance of corrosion if you don't dry it out well. But it's hard to crack it open without gears falling out so be careful.

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Oh I agree the problem had nothing to do with the rear diff. I decided not to touch it when it self healed.... Just that problem indicated to me I needed to double check everything for water infiltration. The T-Case oil looked OK when I checked it, but that is separate from the actuator.

That said, based on what you just described, I'm not cracking it open but I will definitely check that breather hose. Hopefully I can find a good replacement if it is cracked. I'll check it out when I put the T-Case skid on once it gets here.

Actuator Breather Hose

Big thanks to [MENTION=145671]BagiMT[/MENTION], I decided to check the breather hose for the actuator before putting on my new T-Case Skid plate. Glad I did:


I think it is pretty safe to say that this caused some problems.

Thankfully it's an easy fix. Whenever you change your T-Case oil, check this guy. I bought 3 ft of 5/32 vacuum hose from NAPA to replace the old one. I'm guessing the actual stock size is 3mm or 1/8 vacuum hose based on measurements with my calipers, but neither Autozone or NAPA had that in stock. Plus 5/32 was close enough.

The hose in question runs from the actuator to the transfer case, and I'm guessing equalizes pressure between the two so the motors in the T-case aren't fighting a pressure differential when they are running.




I cut the 3ft down to about 2.5 and followed the originally routing. End result is no more frayed connections into either.

I'm just super lucky I live in the desert, so it dried out. I opened one of the spots in the actuator to see if it was wet and it was dry in there. Of course, my water adventure was about 5 months ago so that is not terribly surprising.

Anyway, make sure you check this!

gimlithepirate said:

LOL, I think it's probably we're running closer to the old CO gas than what TX runs, plus the altitude. ABQ is as high as Denver altitude wise, which is brutal. You lose 7% per thousand feet, so at 5k feet your down about 30% on power.

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I agree, altitude is brutal on NA engines but that number is 3% from what I recall.

My V8 is primarily a tow rig so what little I did with the DT headers+magnaflow cross pipe+Gibson SS exhaust = decent power gain for pulling my offroad trailer which is around 2500#.

I turbo'ed my landcruiser and she's now able to get out of her own way :bravo: She's a phat 7,000# and that turbo really makes her scoot along nicely. She won't win any races by any means but at least I can keep up with traffic now!!

gmhotch said:

Floaty, nose divey, and no power, the transmission is constantly gear hunting and shifting to try and get power on inclines.

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That I will agree with. My girls 5th gen is worthless going up hills. And quite scary when panic stopping. The nose-dive thing is comically exaggerated, it has to drop over 2 feet when she nails the brakes. I've never seen the front of a truck nose dive so far.

RCI Skid Plates

The single most important mod you can do to your vehicle is skid plates. I honestly would have made this my first mod after rock sliders if my tires hadn't been in such terrible shape. However, I wanted to avoid double buying tires, so the lift happened first. That in of itself wasn't tempting fate, but driving Elephant Hill and Mineral Creek Rd in CO without skids probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world... but I drove away just fine so no problem I guess?

In deciding on skids, I looked at three options: Coastal Offroad DIY, LFD, and RCI. I liked the design of the Coastal ones, but I have never welded anything in my life. Plus, from what I had read here on the forum fitment for them can be a real challenge. LFD did not have a v8 specific option which pushed them out. That left RCI which is one of the more popular options on this forum.

I turned to a local Facebook page to decide Aluminum vs Steel. The upcharge for aluminum is a little over 100$ uncoated, which is pretty reasonable. In the SW rust and corrosion just aren't major concerns, so I was curious what people would like. Lots of people chimed in for steel, but two comments pushed me towards aluminum. One guy said that aluminum skids were for people who here a scrape, stop and investigate, and then change their line if needed. Steel is for people who can't afford aluminum and those that intend to drag their rig over an obstacle. I definitely stop when I here scraping and asses, so I fall in the first category. The other comment was from a guy who drove a tundra around here and had an older version of the RCI Aluminum plates. He dropped the entire truck on top of a rock on one of the plates at one point with some force and didn't crack it. After seeing the abuse his plates took, and given my general focus on lightweight gear, I decided to go Aluminum.

Here is what we are starting with in terms of the underside of the 4runner:



Lots of little bits to catch on stuff. More critically, the transfer case and transmission are very poorly protected. If you don't have money for full skid protection, I'd say the transmission is a must, followed by the transfer case.

The RCI plates come as three aluminum plates (only two are pictures) and a steel support. If you catch them mid-fab, they will send you either the aluminum or steel first and then the other. They appear to basically gear up for one metal type or the other. So don't be surprised if they come in separate shipments.



I was impressed with both how beefy the skids felt, and with how light they were when handling. Metal science is cool!

A couple of tips when installing. First of all, anything powdercoated needs to be on a towel. Dragging it across the floor will scratch the powdercoat. Secondly, the tip they have for supporting the rear cross member with a floor jack while attaching it is not optional unless you are a gorilla. Holding the cross member in place while attaching is hard work. Lastly, triple check to make sure you have the right hardware. I didn't realize until I was mostly done I was missing pieces, and had to wait to finish for about a week. RCI customer service though was very prompt in getting me replacement parts.

The final product:



Now, there are two reasons that getting big heavy duty skids is important. The first is that the difference in thickness is huge:


These aren't totally comparable because steel vs aluminum, but still, the difference is striking.

The second, is that our vehicles just don't have that much ground clearance:


This is after lifting 2.5 front, 2 back, and going from a 31" tires to 33". When my True North Fabrications bumper gets here and I add the winch, I'll be moving the front struts up a setting, which should get me to my goal of 10.5" of clearance, or about the same as a stock Jeep Rubicon. However, that just isn't a ton of clearance. Having all the skid plates help compensate for the lack of clearance, protecting things that might otherwise be in the line of fire.

Sway Bar Relocation and New Bushings

My next project is building my own sliding disconnects (I will probably write up in its own post and just link it here), but before doing that I need to do the sway bar relocation. I also probably need bushings, as evidenced by the periodic "clunk" I get while articulating.

I got a cheap 20$ relocation bracket kit from eBay. Its a piece of billet aluminum, so "fit and finish" just isn't all that critical. I also purchased the greaseable front swaybar bushings from Prothane.

Starting off, the stock bushings and sway bar didn't look too bad. When the bushing came off you could definitely see 180k miles of wear.



For the relocation bracket, the instruction said to use provided bolts to attach to frame, and OEM bolts to attach the bushing to the bracket. That was backwards. The OEM bolts are too long for bracket, at least with this particular one. I used the OEM bolts to attach to the frame and the provided ones to attach the bushings, and had no trouble whatsoever.


Once this was done, it was simply a matter of attaching the Prothane bushings and bolting everything up.


Easy peasy. Next up, I have all the parts en route to build my own sliding disconnects, and my bumper should be getting here some time in February.

If anyone has a suggestion for winches other than Warn, I am all ears lol.

PCV Valve Replacement Disaster (and Recovery!)

Having owned other Japanese SUVs with V engines, I've found the replacement of the PCV valve to be a pretty important thing to do. It's cheap, it's usually pretty easy, and it keeps your vehicle running well.

This time however, when I went to remove the hose from the PCV valve, as I moved it, there was a loud "craaaack!" and the entire hose came off in my hand. I removed the engine cover to see what happened on the other end, and was greeted by this awful sight:


Initially, I thought I just needed to find the little yellow fitting that was broken, similar to the one next to it. However, as I looked and looked for the fitting, I couldn't find it anywhere. I decided to remove it the rest of the way and have a look:


After looking at the bits that came out, I realized the original fitting was epoxied to the intake plenum. The only way to correctly replace it would be a full intake manifold replacement... The plenum and manifold come as one piece too, so I would be looking at over 1000$ in parts to replace it unless I went junk yard, which given that the VVTi intake plenum is plastic I was not super excited about spending money on an equally heat fatigued part. Heat fatigue was largely responsible for this problem in the first place anyway.

As a Hail Mary, I posted on one of the Facebook groups online to see if anyone had any ideas. Someone made the very good point that if the old fitting was held in with epoxy, a new fitting would also probably hold with epoxy. I measured the hole with calipers, and went to Lowes and got the fittings that were closest to fitting the hole. I then got some high temperature JB Weld, and seriously glopped it on there, and let it dry. The end result, while not pretty, is surprisingly solid:


I carefully put all the pieces together to make sure no plastic fell back into the intake plenum, and then changed my oil for good measure. End result: I think we are back on the road again.

The joys of owning a high mileage vehicle, even if it is a Toyota...

Sliding Disconnects

Built some sliding disconnects for the 4runner. Detailed write up is here: HOWTO: DIY Sliding Disconnects

Figured it would be easier to find as its own thread.

JB Weld seems to be pretty tough stuff! A couple of years ago I JB welded a front sway bar stud into crossmember and it is still holding.