[thezentree]

First realwheelin trip!

I met a couple of my good friends from back home at Uwharrie NF for some four wheeling and camping last weekend. I loaded up and drove 7 hours down from KY to meet them at the campsite. About halfway I noticed my ATF temp was consistently 20-30 hotter than normal and my coolant was a few degrees above normal as well. I also started getting a little bit of a stutter around 1500-2000rpm when in OD and the engine got loaded up. Whatever, press on. If he dies, he dies.

I got to camp mid-evening, set up my tent, and waited on my buddies to get there. They had a 3 hour drive compared to my 7hrs, and I still beat them there by several hours. This is a theme with them. One of my friends bought his jeep a few days before the trip (black TJ) and my other friend brought his 85 Ramcharger that, up until a few days prior, hadn't run in 10 years. We had to complete a laundry list of last minute fixes on that thing just to get it off the trailer, and throughout the day. We even dropped the full 35gal fuel tank at one point to fix the fuel pickup.

Anyway, pics (in no particular order):

All 3 trucks:








Had to drive over these guardrail sections....


...to get around this:




And the view from camp:


It was such a fun trip. We burned a truckbed load of firewood in three nights, ate like 6 year olds, and drank like 18 year olds. The 4Runner did way better than I had expected and I didn't break anything on the trail. I left with a long list of little things I want to change but overall I'm really happy with it. I can't wait to go do it again.

[thezentree]

^ That said, I sort of had to limp it home. The high ATF temps and shuddering persisted anytime I was not in 4LO, so it was a loooong drive home. I managed to keep it in the 180° range for most of the trip by manually shifting gears and manipulating the OD to keep the engine RPMs in a range where the torque converter locked. I'd all but convinced myself the torque converter is dying until I remembered my brother in law's car did something like this that turned out to be a cracked distributor cap. This was also the first week we've had with temps in the 90s, and I realized that Coastal Offroad bumper blocks the bottom half of the radiator ....where the trans cooler lives.

Soooo, I've got a bunch of parts on the way. New Denso radiator, plugs and wires, transmission fluid and filter, etc. I'm also going to cut some vents in the front of this bumper. I'm hoping I've misinterpreted a blocked radiator and fouled spark plugs for a dying torque converter. The ATF is red and doesn't smell burnt, so fingers crossed...

Anyway, which of these masterpieces do y'all like best? I'm leaning towards 1 so far.

1:


2:


3:

[Taylor20]

Originally Posted by thezentree

Yep. They seem pretty well made but I am disappointed they don't fit the brackets.

I'll be replacing mine with Toytec brand probably.

Looks like some good wheeling on your trip, hope yours is in good order for some KAT/DBBB action this summer.

[Quantumkiwi]

Originally Posted by thezentree

Anyway, which of these masterpieces do y'all like best? I'm leaning towards 1 so far.

#2 Seems like the best cross between ventilation and strength. Also think #1 looks a bit off-balanced.

[BlackwaterRunner]

Love the build so far! Where about a was y’alls campsite at Uwharrie? That spot looks awesome


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[thezentree]

Originally Posted by Taylor20

I'll be replacing mine with Toytec brand probably.

Looks like some good wheeling on your trip, hope yours is in good order for some KAT/DBBB action this summer.

Let me know how those work out.

And yeah, I'm hoping to have this latest set of problems figured out this weekend. I can't wait to get back out in the woods.

Originally Posted by Quantumkiwi

#2 Seems like the best cross between ventilation and strength. Also think #1 looks a bit off-balanced.

#2 was what I sharpied on the bumper yesterday afternoon. It's kind of got a throwback to the 1st gen grill theme too.

Originally Posted by BlackwaterRunner

Love the build so far! Where about a was y’alls campsite at Uwharrie? That spot looks awesome


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks, that was Badin Lake CG. It's not the most popular campground with the 4x4 crowd since it's farther from the trailheads, but it's hard to beat a swim in the lake after a 95° day on a dusty trail.

[thezentree]

Like I said previously, I was having some issues that felt like the torque converter was dying, but could also have been ignition issues coupled with this bumper blocking the bottom of the radiator. So, I ordered some parts.

Transmission filter/crush washer/FIPG/Toyota T-IV ATF
Denso Radiator
Spark plugs/wires

The original (!) radiator was in rough shape. The fins were corroded so badly that they turned to dust when I touched them:



The new Denso radiator (probably the Taiwan version) is a little wider than the OEM, so one of the flanges on the support bracket rubs the drivers side framerail and the factory skidplate. Otherwise it was such an easy replacement. It took twice as long to do the spark plugs, which were also in bad shape:



Most of the spark plugs were a little whiter in color, but the electrodes were all worn down pretty badly. I'm interested to see what this does for my fuel mileage.

And then for the fun part: ATF drain and fill and filter replacement. Thanks to @mtbtim for the video, which was super helpful. It was an all-freakin-day affair though. I think my wife hates my 4Runner now.

The ATF was pretty gross and looked like dirty motor oil. I got about 5.5qts out of it. The magnets didn't look too bad for being a 215k mile transmission, but there were a handful of larger chunks like this. Is this normal?





The best part was when my Advance Auto in-lb torque wrench was WILDLY inaccurate and I broke one of the gold-colored M6 bolts that hold the filter to the valve body. That thing is total garbage and it went in the trash where it belongs.

Thankfully the end of the broken bolt wasn't tight in the valve body and I was able to spin it out with a pick, but I had to replace it with a home depot M6x1.0 machine screw. None of the Toyota dealers stock that part and I needed to get the pan back on asap. I think that bolt is designed to fail just past the torque spec, because it broke reaaaaaally easily.

Anyway, I've only been able to drive it for an afternoon but so far it's running pretty good. The ATF temp hasn't gotten above 174° with me driving pretty aggressively in stop and go traffic, and the stutter hasn't appeared, but it really only happened on the highway. We'll see tomorrow on the drive to work.

Fingers crossed.

[thezentree]

Oh, and I added another ventilation hole to the bumper. It's an ugly cut, between the 1-1/2" hole saw and the grinder I could barely fit between the ribs, but hopefully this will help keep things cool. I decided not to make any cuts in the front bumper after how ugly this turned out.



Part of me felt bad for the real estate agent holding an open house next door. The rest of me thinks the prospective buyers should know what they're getting into, haha.

[thezentree]

Welp, it's only 84° here today and my ATF temp hit 205° today in traffic.

Guess I'll just melt my transmission then. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[thezentree]

[thezentree]

I put a B&M 70268 ATF cooler in the other day, seems to be keeping peak ATF temps around 180°F in stop and go traffic, 160°F-ish on the highway. It cools the ATF a lot faster afterwards too. It's been a little cooler the past few days so I don't think I've stressed it as much as I do some days when driving through downtown, but it's certainly an improvement.

It's plumbed between the radiator and the transmission, and I had to buy an extra 5' of 5/16" fuel hose to run it like this (both runs ended up being 4'ish). Feed line on the bottom, return line on top.

[thezentree]

[BackOff]

Noticed that you have your UCA ball-joint installed 180 degrees off...it is not the 'D' setting. May make it harder to align as the runner will want to sit like this \ /.

I had a bad vibe it was a bad rear shock and a tire that was not round.

Nice work on that bumper!



post#6 Pic#5

[thezentree]

Originally Posted by BackOff

Noticed that you have your UCA ball-joint installed 180 degrees off...it is not the 'D' setting. May make it harder to align as the runner will want to sit like this \ /.

I had a bad vibe it was a bad rear shock and a tire that was not round.

Nice work on that bumper!



post#6 Pic#5

It's been a while since I took that pic, but I must have not had the upper nut torqued yet when I took that pic - it's definitely not sitting like that now. Maybe I was just happy to have finally gotten the old UBJ out and the SPC adapter pressed in after fighting with it for an hour, haha. Good catch though.

I've all but given up on being able to eliminated these vibrations. I'm interested to see how new diffs affect it though.

[thezentree]

GET IN LOSERS, WE'RE DOING AN AXLE SWAP






Finally caved and ordered a set of 4.56 diffs from ECGS. The rear is an E-locker, so I bought a junkyard E-locker axle out of a 97. They showed up on one of the hottest weekends of the year so far, but my wife was in San Diego for a bachelorette party, so I took advantage of my temporary freedom and just dealt with the dehydration.

The backing plates were absolutely trashed, so I crossed my fingers and tried to fit my axleshaft/hub/brake assemblies from my 01 axle in the 97 e-locker housing - and they fit.

The e-locker axle had had the rear seals done at some point, as they had the new-style axle seals and there were witness marks for both styles of seals on the retainer:



And I can't tell a difference between the 97 and 01 axles:


Added an @eimkeith PCK:


I'm still waiting on an e-locker harness from 12 Volt Guy but the actuator is CRUSTY and is probably going to need to be rebuilt, so no big deal.

Things I learned:
1) Unbolt the transmission from the crossmember and jack it up like @mtbtim suggests in his video, otherwise you're not gonna fit the front pinion flange between the steering rack and bellhousing.
2) I am not strong, but was able to wrestle the front diff in and out. Getting it out took like 30 minutes. Getting it in took about 3.
3) The paper gasket Toyota uses between the 3rd member and axle housing might as well be a weld. It took two hours, a 3lb sledge, and a crow bar to get the 3rd out of the axle housing. I had to pirate a couple of studs from my 01 axle because I broke a couple on the 97 axle.
4) Plan for this to take twice as long as you think it will. It took me thirty something hours to get it driveable again, and I still have some minor stuff to do to get it buttoned up (figure out WTF happened with the parking brake cable, drop the frame end of the panhard bar another hole, reattach sway bars, re-bleed the rear brakes).

Now for 500 miles of AWD gear break-in....