JZiggy
Senior Member
There was a short strip left unwelded since it was close to the tank. We did drop the skid, though.
JZiggy's "Grown Up" 4Runner Build
- Thread starter JZiggy
- Start date
There was a short strip left unwelded since it was close to the tank. We did drop the skid, though.
JZiggy
Senior Member
Let's talk about rubber washers for these Johnny Joints. This is more of a finishing touch and not a necessity. But the reasons to use them is:
- Stop the joints from contacting the sides of the brackets (metal-on-metal)
- Keep the joints more centered in operation
- Provide some dust protection for the joints
RockJock, who sells Johnny Joints, offers these rubber washers. I thought about making my own but I figured it would be cleaner and easier to get something purpose built rather than spending hours cutting stuff out of sheets of rubber!
The 2" ones are for the upper arms and the 2.5" are for the bigger lowers
Detail on the small ones
Large ones
They are a nice reinforced rubber (there's a fiber mesh in the middle) and the cut quality is very good.
Upper control arms
Lower control arms
- Stop the joints from contacting the sides of the brackets (metal-on-metal)
- Keep the joints more centered in operation
- Provide some dust protection for the joints
RockJock, who sells Johnny Joints, offers these rubber washers. I thought about making my own but I figured it would be cleaner and easier to get something purpose built rather than spending hours cutting stuff out of sheets of rubber!
The 2" ones are for the upper arms and the 2.5" are for the bigger lowers
Detail on the small ones
Large ones
They are a nice reinforced rubber (there's a fiber mesh in the middle) and the cut quality is very good.
Upper control arms
Lower control arms
JZiggy
Senior Member
A few more details about the fitment of the arms and the grease zerks
When I first installed the LCAs I noticed that the lower edge of the factory bracket interfered with the larger Johnny Joints. I took some time sanding that edge to clear the joints and painted them, but I could tell that in operation there would still be a bit of contact on the edges. After running them for a while here's where they touch
I may allow these to self-clearance for a while longer and see if it merits removing a bit more steel, or possibly sanding down the edge of the joints.
For the front bracket of the LCAs I noticed that the supplied grease zerk, which is a two-part one with a 45* base, angled the zerk in such a way that it would be difficult to get a grease gun on it (sorry I don't have a picture of that)
I swapped it out for a 90* zerk and angled it 45* toward the outside
Installed there's just enough room to get at it now
When I first installed the LCAs I noticed that the lower edge of the factory bracket interfered with the larger Johnny Joints. I took some time sanding that edge to clear the joints and painted them, but I could tell that in operation there would still be a bit of contact on the edges. After running them for a while here's where they touch
I may allow these to self-clearance for a while longer and see if it merits removing a bit more steel, or possibly sanding down the edge of the joints.
For the front bracket of the LCAs I noticed that the supplied grease zerk, which is a two-part one with a 45* base, angled the zerk in such a way that it would be difficult to get a grease gun on it (sorry I don't have a picture of that)
I swapped it out for a 90* zerk and angled it 45* toward the outside
Installed there's just enough room to get at it now
JZiggy
Senior Member
Finally for now, let's talk about pinion angle.
There are a lot of good resources online about pinion angles, how to measure them, ideal setting for different applications, and so on. Our trucks use a simple u-joint at the axle and a double cardan joint at the transfer case. The cardan joint takes up all the misalignment between the angles of the transfer case and the 3rd member pinion, so the u-joint as the pinion is happiest when it runs perfectly straight (ie, no pinion angle).
The pinion angle is the difference between the angle of the angle that the driveshaft makes with the ground and the angle that the pinion makes with the ground. If they're both oriented the same then you have zero pinion angle.
When the truck is loaded the body and the drivetrain drop, and the driveshaft angle decreases, so the pinion angle goes down. The pinion's native angle with respect to the ground is set by the length of the control arms and doesn't change appreciably when the vehicle is loaded.
Ideally we want the pinion angle to be +/- 2* to minimize wear and vibrations. So the best approach is to set your pinion angle when unloaded to about 2*, knowing that if you load your truck down it will decrease somewhat. You may see information online stating that it should be set higher to account for the pinion wanting to angle upward under acceleration, but this only happens for leaf-sprung vehicles so we don't need to worry about that effect.
I got a Klein angle finder and measured my pinion angle like this:
For the driveshaft, attach the magnet to the shaft and center it to get the lowest possible reading (then you know it's really dead straight)
For the pinion, I put the magnet on a short piece of flat steel and held the steel against the input flange with the angle finder straight up and down (best to move the vehicle until the sides of the u-joint are vertical like shown)
In this example, driveshaft angle is 9.3* and the pinion is 90* minus the 82.5* reading, so 7.5*. This gives us a pinion angle of 9.3 - 7.5 = 1.8* which is great for unloaded.
After my lift with the stock length control arms this pinion angle was 3.5*. I think I lengthened the UCAs by about 1/4" to correct the pinion angle.
With the truck moderately loaded (full tank of gas, camping platform, 7 gal of water, gear, but no passenger weight) I measured a pinion angle of about 1* so that puts me in a pretty comfortable range.
There are a lot of good resources online about pinion angles, how to measure them, ideal setting for different applications, and so on. Our trucks use a simple u-joint at the axle and a double cardan joint at the transfer case. The cardan joint takes up all the misalignment between the angles of the transfer case and the 3rd member pinion, so the u-joint as the pinion is happiest when it runs perfectly straight (ie, no pinion angle).
The pinion angle is the difference between the angle of the angle that the driveshaft makes with the ground and the angle that the pinion makes with the ground. If they're both oriented the same then you have zero pinion angle.
When the truck is loaded the body and the drivetrain drop, and the driveshaft angle decreases, so the pinion angle goes down. The pinion's native angle with respect to the ground is set by the length of the control arms and doesn't change appreciably when the vehicle is loaded.
Ideally we want the pinion angle to be +/- 2* to minimize wear and vibrations. So the best approach is to set your pinion angle when unloaded to about 2*, knowing that if you load your truck down it will decrease somewhat. You may see information online stating that it should be set higher to account for the pinion wanting to angle upward under acceleration, but this only happens for leaf-sprung vehicles so we don't need to worry about that effect.
I got a Klein angle finder and measured my pinion angle like this:
For the driveshaft, attach the magnet to the shaft and center it to get the lowest possible reading (then you know it's really dead straight)
For the pinion, I put the magnet on a short piece of flat steel and held the steel against the input flange with the angle finder straight up and down (best to move the vehicle until the sides of the u-joint are vertical like shown)
In this example, driveshaft angle is 9.3* and the pinion is 90* minus the 82.5* reading, so 7.5*. This gives us a pinion angle of 9.3 - 7.5 = 1.8* which is great for unloaded.
After my lift with the stock length control arms this pinion angle was 3.5*. I think I lengthened the UCAs by about 1/4" to correct the pinion angle.
With the truck moderately loaded (full tank of gas, camping platform, 7 gal of water, gear, but no passenger weight) I measured a pinion angle of about 1* so that puts me in a pretty comfortable range.
JZiggy
Senior Member
Not sure! Great question.
phattyduck
Elite Member
This is true, but it does wear out the u-joint bearings quickest. Because of this, having SOME angle is good. Looks like you are in a good range.
Also, whether you gain or lose pinion angle is dependent on suspension (arm) geometry, relative lengths, etc. You took that into account by measuring unloaded and loaded, so you are all good there too.
It may be worth getting the rear alignment checked to make sure the thrust angle is good, but if you matched the OEM lower arms, you should be pretty close.
-Charlie
JZiggy
Senior Member
Thanks! I heard anecdotally that having the u-joint at zero angle wears it out -- is the idea that it doesn't have steady motion and the wear gets concentrated to a few needles?
After I'm 100% sure I'm done tinkering with the rear suspension I'll get a 4 wheel alignment. I did change the lower arm length a bit to move the axle back slightly, and the steering wheel is slightly off now so I know I changed something.
phattyduck
Elite Member
JZiggy
Senior Member
Lots of small updates to share with my friends here.
Timmy [MENTION=120071]mtbtim[/MENTION] made another visit to GA and we had a week or so full of 4Runner stuff. Shot a few small videos which you'll see on his channel soon. He helped me with a couple brake maintenance items:
Proactive change of brake master cylinder (OEM was still working but had over 300k on it). The new Aisin one from Rockauto worked great and seems to have reduced pedal effort a bit - perhaps the old one had some drag.
We also swapped out the LSPV. I'm still not sure that I have the springaling dingdong set up correctly, despite staring at the FSM for a while. If anyone has ideas I'm all ears. But it's working great, no complaints. I even spec'ed out a speed bleeder for it which is pretty cool.
OSR update: heaving wheeling and there's just a teensy rub mark on a shock on one side, so I guess the wheel spacers are juuuuust wide enough
Also got to meet some awesome folks at a group wheeling trip in NC
And do some extended exploring in N GA. Some spooky trail wheeling at high elevation
Took me like 2 hours to spray out the undercarriage after all that fun! :biggrin1:
Timmy [MENTION=120071]mtbtim[/MENTION] made another visit to GA and we had a week or so full of 4Runner stuff. Shot a few small videos which you'll see on his channel soon. He helped me with a couple brake maintenance items:
Proactive change of brake master cylinder (OEM was still working but had over 300k on it). The new Aisin one from Rockauto worked great and seems to have reduced pedal effort a bit - perhaps the old one had some drag.
We also swapped out the LSPV. I'm still not sure that I have the springaling dingdong set up correctly, despite staring at the FSM for a while. If anyone has ideas I'm all ears. But it's working great, no complaints. I even spec'ed out a speed bleeder for it which is pretty cool.
OSR update: heaving wheeling and there's just a teensy rub mark on a shock on one side, so I guess the wheel spacers are juuuuust wide enough
Also got to meet some awesome folks at a group wheeling trip in NC
And do some extended exploring in N GA. Some spooky trail wheeling at high elevation
Took me like 2 hours to spray out the undercarriage after all that fun! :biggrin1:
fourfive
Senior Member
Lol. Think we pulled your transmission faster than that.
Pyral
Member
I did the same test with my Aisin and the old one. My original (or old one) has NTCL stamped on it instead of NTC, and it has no Teq logo either. No date code on the original, but it does have QA81 stamped on the brass post under the spring. The new Aisin one has no branding on it, if I didn't get it from RockAuto I'd have doubts it was genuine.Wow, it has definitely been too long since updating this thread! I finally have a few things to share, and here's the first one:
I've been suspicious that my fuel economy has dropped, seeing some tanks not hit 20mpg when I usually hover just above that. Winter fuel blend, longer warmup times, etc are probably contributing a bit but I wanted to chase down a couple of suspicions first.
1) When I first got this truck I changed the water pump and thermostat, probably late 2016 or early 2017. I did that job again recently (with Timmy!) as PM since it had been 80k or so. I used an standard 82C Aisin thermostat which seemed like a good choice vs. OEM...
Previously my operating temp via Scangauge was always about 182-184F. It rarely deviated. With the new thermostat I was seeing 172-176F which is definitely too low. The operating temp should be a little above the thermostat setpoint (180F) and certainly not below it.
Fortunately I had kept my old OEM thermostat as a spare (don't know if it's actually 1999 original or was changed by the dealer sometime pre 200k). I tested it in a pot of water and it matched FSM specs perfectly: starts to open at 184F, and is wide open around 200F.
The Teq logo stamped on parts is always a good thing :biggrin1: So I popped that one in yesterday, and now my operating temps are back at around 185F. I'm suspicious that the truck was still trying to get out of warmup mode and the too-cold Aisin thermostat was not letting it.
2) Mid 2022 I upgraded to some 12-hole Osidetiger fuel injectors which I have really liked. When Leon tried this upgrade on his V6 he had poor results and documented some excessive fuel trims from his OBD2 scanner. I wanted to see what the case was with mine.
I grabbed some screenshots of the scanner at warm highway cruise before and after swapping the thermostats.
Before:
After:
In both cases the upstream O2 sensor appears to be working properly (oscillating quickly from 0.1V to 0.8V).
For long term fuel trim (LTFT) With the cold thermostat I got:
+5.5% at warm cruise
-13.5% at warm idle
With OEM thermostat:
+7% at warm cruise
-7.8% at warm idle
It's not surprising that the LTFT should be nonzero with aftermarket injectors. Surely they have slightly different base flowrates and flow dynamics. It looks like at cruise the computer has to slightly increase the fuel flow and at idle it slightly decreases. Since the trims are within a +/- 10% range I don't think there is any issue -- the computer has plenty of latitude to compensate based on what the O2 sensor is telling it regarding rich/lean.
Fingers crossed that getting back to normal operating temps will improve my gas mileage!
My Aisin started opening at 179-180F, the original at 181-182F, they're suppose to open at 82C or 179.6F. At 198F the Aisin seemed to be open wider than the original one.
So they're both pretty spot on, especially the new Aisin. I'm questioning if I want to put the Aisin one in right now, I get new tires soon and it will be impossible to know how a new thermostat affects my gas milage in the few short weeks I have left with my current tires.
What do you guys think, should I put the new Aisin one in?
JZiggy
Senior Member
A couple of armor-related updates:
Finally got around to welding in the Eimkeith strut tower reinforcement (STR) plates. Since these are just bonus my welder opted to just stitch them in a few places on the outside edge, seems like that will do the job for stiffening up the front tower.
I also got a pair of Freel Good lower link axle mount reinforcements to complement all the other Eimkeith link mount upgrades I did in the fall. I went ahead and got a couple more 100mm long bolts from Belmetric to ensure I had enough thread contact with the nut. The OEM bolt was pretty close but not 100% contact.
Finally got around to welding in the Eimkeith strut tower reinforcement (STR) plates. Since these are just bonus my welder opted to just stitch them in a few places on the outside edge, seems like that will do the job for stiffening up the front tower.
I also got a pair of Freel Good lower link axle mount reinforcements to complement all the other Eimkeith link mount upgrades I did in the fall. I went ahead and got a couple more 100mm long bolts from Belmetric to ensure I had enough thread contact with the nut. The OEM bolt was pretty close but not 100% contact.
JZiggy
Senior Member
I put speed bleeders on my truck in 2017. The sealant around the threads started to go bad so they didn't operate correctly. When bleeding fluid comes out around the threads preventing a good seal. I went ahead and put new ones on. The old ones can be cleaned and get new sealant -- spares for now.
brillo_76
Elite Member
I put speed bleeders on my truck in 2017. The sealant around the threads started to go bad so they didn't operate correctly. When bleeding fluid comes out around the threads preventing a good seal. I went ahead and put new ones on. The old ones can be cleaned and get new sealant -- spares for now.
I noticed that as well... If the speed bleeders loose their sealant on the threads its best to reseal the threads. Also keep a cover over the bleeder itself. Granted, I am not sure how good they would stay on in off-roading situations. You know that side of it a lot better then I would.
JZiggy
Senior Member
I noticed that as well... If the speed bleeders loose their sealant on the threads its best to reseal the threads. Also keep a cover over the bleeder itself. Granted, I am not sure how good they would stay on in off-roading situations. You know that side of it a lot better then I would.
Yep, speed bleeder sells a little bottle of thread sealant with directions on how to reapply it. And yes, I always run covers too
Spiker Engineering
official vendor
I reused my speed bleeders when I installed new calipers on the truck, but did apply a layer of the sealant on the threads. It was annoying having to wait for it to dry, so in hindsight I probably should have done what you did - get new ones and use the old ones (with new sealant) as spares.
Curious, about how many bleed cycles did you do before the leakage started?
JZiggy
Senior Member
Hard to say, but I did mess with them a lot over those 8ish years. I also rebuilt the front calipers and had the bleeders in and out multiple times. Those were the ones that leaked.
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