I never really posted in the new section or any pictures of my 2000 4runner so here goes.

Im a University of california: irvine student from the west valley of the San Fernando Valley, CA. I started driving in a 95 and 99 toyota camry (we still have both as my parents commuter cars!) when i was 15.5 and got my license when i was 16. I didn't drive in high school at all because it really wasn't needed since i lived a mile from school, but I was insured in case I wanted to go somewhere, etc.

I started using the 1999 camry as my own and just did a few cosmetic mods to make it mine. lol
I don't really have any pictures but it, just as the 95, was owned since brand new by my parents and my dad taught me to wrench on it covering all basic maintenance: oil changes, transmission pan drops, ignition timing inspection/adjustments, brakes, mostly everything excluding timing belt/water pump replacements. I drove it all my 2nd year in college and put over 9,000 miles on it even though my apartment was 5 miles from campus

Anywho, we also had a 2008 camry (camry family, i know right?) but in Apr. 2012 it was totaled when my sister made a left turn when an oncoming car sped through the red light. We got the check and soon put it towards a 2012 4runner SR5 4x4 that my dad sometimes takes to work and is mostly a weekend car.

We loved it so much, and i was always nagging him about the third gens. I always thought the 3rd gens were complete sex, and i had to have one eventually. He kept saying to just drive his but it didn't make sense for me, a college kid to drive around a 40,000 dollar brand spanking new truck. So one weekend I was home from school and was with my dad at the local garage mechanic (daytime job hes a lexus mechanic) getting a quote for our 2004 sienna timing belt job. Lo and behold, he had a 2000 limited he bought from his brother that he needed to get rid of since he just bought a prius.

I sat in it, and even though i REALLY wanted a 4x4, i liked it. The mileage was at 155k, and the mechanical condition was the best i had ever been in (test drove a bunch of third gens, never really found "the one"). No leaks anywhere, shiny engine block where you could tell it wasn't just a quick spray of engine degreaser and the garden hose. It was mechanically cleaner than a baby's powdered arse. Also it had less than a year old Michelin X Radial LT2 (club version of the ltx ms2), the 5 stars, and being a Socal car absolutely no underbody rust.

However, the roof towards the front windshield had a few ripple like dents that he said were caused by the garage door? I don't know but i think it gives some character lol. You can't really notice it anyway unless you actually look for the damage. The paint was absolutely uncared for and yellowed. and the interior looking like a mess.

Enough introduction heres the babe.


When i first brought her home.











Buddy approved.



This is the ripple dents i was mentioning plus some surface rust that i later took care of.



Moving onto the interior













Driver seat was ripped as usual

Here is what i mean by yellowing of the paint and oxidation.

I didn't take any pictures of the driver front fender before i started working and started taking pictures after i finished that part. You can see the disgusting paint on the driver door/mirror (especially the mirror, blegh) versus the newly clayed, polished, and waxed fender





Here is a BEFORE of the mirrors





and an AFTER - i only took a picture of the driver mirror



As you might know i am a full time student so i had to section my time in cleaning and detailing. The low light was hard to see which sections i had clayed vs waxed so i taped off sections of the hood so i could work it section by section

You can see the difference between the two sides based off of a reflection of the carport light - the right side had a clear outline of the light housing and the roof beams whereas the left side just scattered the light everywhere and was just plain fuzzy.



Heres another of the predetailed side



and the detailed side



In general the paint all around the truck was like the hazy yellow crap and it took me about 2-3 days working about 2-3 hours section by section to get it done. Each day i sprayed over the sections i would be detailing with warm water + car shampoo to make sure i cleaned off the fresh layers of dus/dirt.

I used meguiars clay kit- includes clay and the clay lube, meguiars polishing compound, and the armor all xtreme wax that was recently free from a rebate, in addition to a LOT of microfiber cloths.

Here are the shots of paint after the cleaning sessions

Next to my neighbors Escape



The shine!!!



I really dig this picture for some reason









Here are a few of the engine bay

Next came cleaning the interior. I sprayed literally everything down with diluted simple green and that cleaned the vinyl off pretty good. I unfortunately dont have picture so the interior after cleaning, but i did a pretty solid job i think. The carpet was ridiculous though and literally slapped the simple green in the face. I went to the Detailing.com store in irvine and picked up a can of the meguiars foaming carpet cleaner: that thing is SOLID. The one can easily penetrated the carpet and lifted the stains out. 1 can was enough to do the front and middle area, the rear was relatively clean after the simple green.

I was tired of the ripped driver seat and i bought the Coverking seat covers from costco and had them within the week. But the fitment wasnt as good as i wanted it, and the color did not much very well so i returned those (i love costco).










I soon after scored the Wet okole's with a coupon from autoanything in TAUPE and black for the front seats.

You can see the color is a bit darker than the coverkings and matched the truck much better.









I then bought LEDS all around for the interior



Heres a crappy picture (low light) of the cleaned rear seats + leds





Cluster LEDS - lol i still need to fix my hvac control lights, the display panel just needed a tap to get working again.



I then installed higher watter Hella H4 bulbs from amazon that were 7 a piece - these were much brighter than the old bulbs





I sat like this for about 2 months - the front suspension was started to give and the rear suspension was completely shot. My rear literally bounced after rolling relatively slow over the apartment parkings speed bumps and it had the characteristic spring sound (like happy times in bed).

I painted the skid hot rod red some time in Late October or November.
Here she is sitting in the school parking lot where i thought she looked particular angelic







Heres a 3peat of 4runners at my schools gym

I then got new suspension all around for Black Friday/My birthday and installed over winter break.

I researched this a bunch and decided for the OME 890s in the rear with the comfort shocks (60028) and the 881s in front with the sport shocks (9004)

890s vs stock



881/9004 vs stock



Fenagling with the rear differential up and down on either side and getting the hang of it i got the rear done once i disconnected the rear sway bar relatively easily.. just time consuming to figure out how to remove the old shocks

driver side spring installed without shock



Rear fully installed = 37" high (floor to fender)



Front was straight forward, getting the lower shock bolts to align properly was a huge pain though.. = 35" (floor to fender)







It looks like oil splatter everywhere but its just water, i was scrubbing off years worth of dirt/grime/brake dust that was caked on.

While i was down here i checked for play in the lower ball joint using a method i saw in a mechanic video


HOW TO CHECK LOWER BALL JOINTS

Using a heavy duty pry bar wedge it between the lower ball joint and check for play.



It was tight as heck and had 0 play. It should bend the pry bar and the LBJ should budge a millimeter.

heres a closeup of where to place the pry bar



Once installed the difference in the ride was completely different. It felt grounded properly and that i was cemented to the floor, if that makes sense?

I then visited my grandparents at Rose Hills Memorial and halfway down the hill i was descending the steering chopped terribly as i broke and shook the car viciously. Time for the tundra brake upgrade. Follow the @BigFishAllDay guide - it rocks

New hardware on bottom: 13WL stamped and 231mm size- clears the stock 5 stars fine.





All mounted up



I chose to use a retaining clip on top and bottom - make sure the retaining clips do not come in contact with the rotor otherwise there will be an extremely annoying squealing. My god that noise drove me crazy.




The stock horn is really wack - i picked this 12v air horn up for 15 from harbor freight



Theres a bunch of tutorials online of how to do it but if you need help if you do this horn mod then just hit me up.


Here are some stance pictures after the new suspension was installed

Rear installed: stock front (this looks SICK, but just too much rake to be comfortable for me)





Front and Rear installed



Here she is next to a stock 4th gen at my schools gym parking lot



4runner sandwich!!




I plastidipped my emblems and front grill but didn't take any pictures since its been covered.

Went to the Holy Jim trail 2 weeks ago with matt (TRDTeen)
Path leading into it was bumpy as hell, once we went further in it was pretty cool. Im super impressed with my Michelins after taking the short rock path we took (no pics sorry).







The first shes seen of any mud!!

Paint came out nice. I did the same to mine last year, what a difference. Love having the single stage paint that doesn't oxidize, makes it easier to clean up!

Good job on everything so far.

Thanks man. I love just running my hand over the paint and having it feel like polished glass, lol its pretty amazing to be honest that its single stage.

You definitely did an excellent job at cleaning up that 4Runner!

Hope to see you at a meet in the near future!

Thanks man!

I'm definitely down to go but im afraid i wont be able to hang with the big dogs, being 2wd :l

2WD can still be fun!

good job on cleaning the interior , holy crap what did the po do to the inside of that poor truck

Lol thx, PO is a mechanic and im guessing he didn't care to wash his hands before driving/transporting things. Also his son has some problems and the back was just cluttered with old crusty food/snacks, and random melted crayons lol. Cleaning it was a pita but its okay now. I plan to pull the seats and do a more thorough carpet cleaning job sometime in the summer.

You ve put in a lot of work and it shows! Great work so far.

Welcome to the 3rd gen section.

Ordered some TRD decals off ebay for like 18 bucks. Here they are

Finally got a build thread going! Looks really good man. Lets hit the trail again sometime soon.