I have always wondered what would happen, but never seen it happen with a strap. I saw a guy run over a winch line and wrap it around the axle a few times once long ago. People who are into 4x4s know to avoid running over a strap or winch line, but these were just some nice old folk who wanted to sight see. I'm happy I was there to pull them out.

I parked next to a Ferrari.

Don’t you hate it when the gas pump will not stay on?

Lots of stolen cars get ditched in my neighborhood. For some reason I like to take pictures next to them, just like how I can’t resist a picture in front of an abandoned building. There is actually a lifted JK ditched a few blocks away, the 33s have gone flat after sitting a few months. It’s sad to see a cool vehicle stolen and wasted like that.

We went with my cousin in his 2nd gen taco to go out to cut our own Christmas trees. It was all dirt roads, some of them were 4x4 only roads. It was fun, pretty muddy in areas, we saw some people get stuck, and one slide off the side of the road.


We were kind of looking for an unusual tree, something with two tops, something atypical and eccentric. We ended up with this 10’ odd tree, that by the time I had it trimmed so it would fit in our living room it was basically a giant bush.


Cutting your own tree is a fun activity, we will probably do it again next year.

Why are you talking about Christmas trees in May?

Because I am always about 6 months behind in this thread.

The starter clicking wasn’t getting any better, and happening more often. I did some research on here and determined that it was probably the starter contacts and plunger. So I bought the applicable Dorman starter contact and plunger set, and watched the timmy the toolman video. The video, as always, was excellent and saved me lots of time, especially in getting it out through the wheel well.

I stuck it in one of my vises on the work bench to make it easy to work on. This is my favorite vintage craftsman vise. I like vices, I have a vise vice.

The old contacts had a lot of wear, worn down to probably a quarter of their original thickness where the plunger contacts them. It was also filthy in there.

Taking it apart, I used the method my pa taught me when I was a little kid taking apart my bike. Lay it all out in the order and orientation it came apart in. You can see in the center of the photo that the starter contact kit comes with 5 different new contacts.

With the new and old plungers side by side you can really see how much thinner the contacting ring on the old, dirty one is. These could also be referred to as the "Steel Mushroom"

I cleaned the inside up good.

I put the largest contacts from the box into the starter. The one on the left is larger than the one I took it out in the first place. I had seen online where someone also put the bigger one it. 6 months later it is still working well.

The boot on the wire disintegrated a bit, so I did what most do in this case, ziptied it back together. Now that I am giving it more thought I realize I could have put some larger heatshrink over the torn boot, and that would have looked cleaner. The thing about this job that surprised me the most was how fast and easy it was to do. I went from parking the 4runner to starting it again in two hours.

The problem with storage compartments, is that there is sometimes not enough light to see what is inside. At night the rear storage compartment does not get 100% lit up by the rear cabin and hatch lights. Luckily I happened to have more of these LEDs around. I used a pair of these under the hood. For this application, I only used one.

Of course, all work should be done at night, outside, in the winter.

Nice and bright in there! The Led strip is just stuck up there with the double sided tape that it comes with.

All the wiring is in loom in case of chaffing or rubbing.

Plenty of light in there!

Pretty well lit back there! All the light in this picture is from the lights on the 4runner.

The new LED is wired to the same circuit as the rear hatch lights. So whenever the rear dome light is on, the light in the compartment is on. This light is nice to have, fun, but not really necessary.

To be honest, when I removed the inner box (and I think a little insulation) from the rear storage compartment, I don’t think I noticed any more noise or heat coming through from that corner of the vehicle. However, I ended up with a big roll of this radiant barrier bubble wrap stuff. So I insulated the area. I just started cutting pieces to fit.

Since this style of foil bubble wrap stuff does not have adhesive built into it, I used this old as dirt spray adhesive that I have had laying around forever.

Cut pieces, glue them in.




I kept going until everything was covered, it sure is easy to see in there with all that light! I then used adhesive foil tape to cover up all the seams. The foil makes the light seem even brighter! One good bonus is that if stuff bounces around in the compartment, the insulation is soft to cushion, and dampens the sound. That wasn’t really a problem though. I kinda just wanted to do this.

One of the front corner lights had the upper mount break. It would sit in there a little crooked, looking a little stupid. I looked into a new oem one, they were $50+, and due to age, the new and old one would probably be a little different. So I did what I have always secretly wanted to do, I got the Depo Clear corners from EBay.



I am super juiced about these! With these on I have basically no color in the front at all. The all gray and black look with no orange or yellow looks pimp! I need to get leds for the bumper lights to get rid of the orange bulbs. Or get rid of the bumper. If only I could find something similar for the rear lights.

I really like these. I need a sport hood now to round out the look.

I am going to put some effort into necromancing my thread.

I hate cords hanging around on the dash. You might have noticed the possibly unnecessary effort I put into my ScangaugeII mount. I am more than happy to waste that time and energy on these little things that only I will notice, providing I have the time and energy to spare. My GPS cord was annoying me. I had it stretched out under and around the side of the dash so it wouldn’t be so visible. This was not good enough, so I did what any reasonable person would do.

I made a hole in the dash behind where the GPS goes. Then I cut the cord about 12” back from the end, and heat shrink crimped it back together. Now the end is always where I want it.

Since I can shove the cord in and out, when the GPS is not being run, I just push the length back in the dash. When sitting in the seat, it's not really noticeable. The next few times I turned on the defrost I got to enjoy a facefull of plastic debris blowing out the vents. If I did it again I would cover them.

So that’s all well and good, but how do I power it? Before, I got the power from the cigarette lighter, err, 12v power port. That always worked fine, so let us steal a watt or two off of that. In order to hide how hack this vehicle is, we need to keep the wiretapping hidden. I have a few of these little deals that allow you to use a split off a spade connector.

I added the heat shrink to insulate, using some color to signify positive and negative. They fit on the 12v port perfectly!

OK, so I can just cut off the plug, and plug in the device with the spade connectors? Nope! Turns out, there is a bunch of electrical doodads and widgets in the plug, doing capacitance or inductance or turning Microfarads into Henries. I didn’t want to mess with that so I cut down the plastic as small as I could so I could hide it back in the dash. I had to keep some of the plastic to protect the small board from being beaten up, lest the coulombs break loose.

Now I can just plug it in to the 12v power, and enjoy my cord free environment.

About a year ago I got a pair of key fobs off of amazon. These were the cheap no-name most likely made in china units.
The programming was pretty easy, but took a few tries. It’s nice to have a remote for locks and the back window. It’s like living in the future! One problem thought is that the rear window button only rolls the rear window down, not up. I’m not sure if that is because I got the cheap non OEM ones, or if that is just the way they all are.
Another interesting thing is when the fob is clicked to unlock or lock the doors, the parking lights flash. I have my dual battery isolation solenoid hooked up to the parking lights, so whenever the parking lights flash, the battery isolation solenoid clicks twice, loudly. Not sure if this is a problem or not. I might look for a different key on energy source in the future.
I also bought a bunch of suspension parts! I paid $600 bucks for this pile of stuff.

My brother in law picked it all up in Santa Cruz for me, in exchange we took them out to dinner. That’s ok, I like them and would want to do that anyway. I am sure you noticed that there is a pair of leaf springs there, and a set of shocks with eyes on both ends. Those parts are uncommon on 3rd gen 4runners.

Ok, so I bought a bunch of Tacoma stuff. I cleaned the crap out of it, and polished them up as best I could.


I was able to sell them for 250! So I now have a set of kings for the front, that I am 350 in to. I think they have 650# coils, so it would be pretty stiff without a heavy bumper or winch up front.

I am very excited about these.

Wow you got hooked up!!! Those Kings look nicer than mine and I’ve only got 5k miles on em


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That is the correct functionality of the window button on the fob, however, there is a detailed writeup on here where someone did some modding to be able to also roll up from the fob. Could probably sear "rear window" or "roll up."

Parking lights is not a good key-on power source... There multiple wires in the engine bay to use instead.

-Charlie

Thanks! I go through phases where I check craigslist every day for a while, and this set up kept popping up, steadily getting cheaper and cheaper. I think they were originally listed for 900 or 1000. I did clean them up a bit with my go-to cleaner for everything- windex. It's good for coilovers, the kitchen table, anything. I also spray it on my hands and wipe them with a rag in the garage when they are filthy and I don't want to go inside.

Good idea, I will look into that. My first wiring hack priority is to figure out how to make it so I can turn my fog lights and high beams on at the same time. Probably just need to cut one wire and wire it hot or something simple like that. Figuring it out is the hard part

Got a good key on power source you would recommend? I'm not decided if I want to keep it Key On, Engine Off, or switch it to Key On, Engine On. KOEO has worked out for me so far, so I might just keep it like that.