Every truck is different a little bit and every setup varies some. I ran 34's for a long time with plenty of clearance. So - first it'll depend on which 35" tire you want. If it's 34.5" tall - I think you could realistically run it with only a front fender liner mod, bumper trim, and BMC if you use stock ish offset wheels. Like a BFG AT. I think that would fit pretty easily.

The other thing that will help is to NOT lift it much or at all. If you keep it to low ride height, you can retain proper caster angles by maxing out your forward position of the lower ball joint and NOT need to use aftermarket upper control arms. All of the caster correction UCAs move the upper ball joint back toward the firewall. Keeping stock UCAs gives you more firewall clearance. You'll have more clearance for larger tires at stock height than lifted with UCAs.

A third option is to make a custom LCA. I've detailed somewhere on here how I would do it, but I have not done it. I don't even have a 4Runner anymore. But I would buy new LCAs and have a professional welder - I mean a real professional - weld the lower ball joint cast steel ends on the opposite arms. That will move the lower ball joint about 1 inch forward on both side. That alone should get you both plenty of clearance for the 35s and enough caster to run a higher lift without needing UCAs. And it probably won't cost much more than a set of aftermarket UCAs. One other note is that the cast end part that is the ball joint mounting piece incorporates a cast in steering stop. You'll need to re-crate that. Don't leave it without the steering stop or you might damage something.

A second option would be to take the stock LCA, press out the bushings, cut the bushing sleeves off and relocate them to move the LCA forward half an inch to a full inch, then re-weld back on. This should also net the same result. The only difference here is that you would also be retaining the relationship between the lower coilover mount and axle. My one concern with the ball joint swap was whether you'd end up with contact between the coil over and the axle as you sweep through the turn radius. In my case - using fox coilovers, I could just modify the misalignment spacers to adjust the lower shock mount fore/aft location. With other coil overs you may or may not need some adjusting. You'd just have to mock it up and see how it works. I think it'll work, but I don't know.

To be clear on this - I have not done it myself. My 285/75/17s - 34's - fit fine with good alignment and BMC with stock bump stops and full flex in all situations without rub. I think the modified LCA is the best solution for this and I'm a bit surprised no one is selling this as a pre-packaged solution.


Is the extra tire size worth the effort? That's really a question only you can answer. For me it wasn't, but I also wasn't using my 4Runner as a primary trail rig.

Here's a picture of what you'd get just by switching sides on the lower ball joint outer cast assembly. It's subtle, but would be enough I think to clear 35's without any firewall modification. And - side benefit is that it'll look completely stock. So you can play dumb "Yeah, mine fits 35's easy. It's all stock under there. I just bolted them on and it had plenty of clearance, not sure what's up with your 4Runner." :