Hi all, I'm new to the forum and this is my first real post, so be patient with me and I'm open to any suggestions.
Preface: After my 4th gen was totalled a block from my house when a girl ran a stop sign, I picked up a well used 2000 4runner from my good friend and neighbor. He's been the head mechanic over at the local Toyota dealership for the last 20 years. He bought the truck from the dealership after the original owners traded it in. It was owned by a local company who had frequent meetings in Las Vegas, so the 289,000 miles on the clock are mostly highway miles driving employees back and forth from SLC to Vegas. It's got it's quirks, but runs like a champ, still gets 20MPG highway. This one is equipped with the factory Rear Diff e-locker, so naturally it is destined to spend some time down in Moab. I might be crazy to dump money on rigging out this runner that has 300k miles, but we've all seen them go for much longer. It has its flaws, some paint fading on the hood, roof, and fender flares. It seems like there might be a slight HG leak, as it will gurgle a little bit on startups sometimes, and sometimes throws a random misfire code, but overall in good running shape. Everything works fine and the interior isn't thrashed.
So I went ahead and pulled the trigger on some equipment to rig my truck, and I'm going to try to document my mods here, as well as ask for any insight into how to best perform them and any thoughts you all might have! I appreciate any comments. I've got the following equipment and plan to install it all over the next couple weeks in this order:
1)Armor/Recovery/lighting
-ARB Tacoma Bumper (3423040) $780
-Smittybilt XRC 9.5K Winch (97495) $265
-Hella 500FF Lights ~$50
2) Lift
-Bilstein 5100 Front Shocks (24-248730) - $96 * 2
-4th Gen v6 Front Coils (free takeoffs from a friend)
-OME 2890 Rear Coils Used - $90
-OME Nitrocharger N182 Shocks (had them kicking around, swapped out the bushings with Energy p/n9.8108)
3) CB Radio
-Uniden PRO520XL $45
-4' Firestik antenna $25
-MK-204 Door Jamb Mount & Firering Coax $28
I'll post my thoughts on the process and application for each as they come up, hopefully if you have any input to make this work go easier for me, I'd appreciate it.
As far as the bumper goes, there's a pretty solid installation walkthrough on youtube with
Timmy the Tool Man. I plan to follow that pretty closely, with the exception of mounting the winch in the bumper before installing it onto the brackets.
Any suggestions on control box location or mounting method? I don't plan on having any in-cab controls, just the solenoid and manual control, I want to keep the winch simple and independent. In the video, they mention
reinforcing the frame rails in the front if you're going to be doing anything heavy duty and winching, does anybody have a suggestion on
how to do this, what metal to use, etc? I was thinking of using the square shaped pieces that are supplied in the ARB installation kit, just cutting off a 3x2 piece and welding it into the front?
I have a question on the Hellas, I'd like to connect them up to the OEM fog light connectors, is this feasible? Are there any electrical issues with using that OEM connection for those brighter lights? Also, I know that on the 4th gens, it would switch off the fogs if you had your brights on, and you couldn't run them independent of the headlights; is that also the case with the 3rd gen? I did the mod on my 4th gen to allow them to run independent of the headlights, is there a similar mod out there for the 3rd gens?
Again, I appreciate any comments that anyone has, and forgive the long-windedness of this post. I should have photos coming up as I attempt to install all of this stuff myself!