My driver side front door is definitely in need of repair so this video is perfect. Thanks again for all the videos you make. Has helped me out a ton.
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1999 Limited with rear locker.
Sherpa Matterhorn | Sonoran Steel Diff Drop | SPC UCAs | DuroBumps Front and Rear | OME 890 Springs and Black Tokico Shocks | Eimkeith Reinforcements and PCK | King Coilovers | OCD Sway Bar Links | Opt Offroad Rear Arms | Lil Skips Gas Tank Skid Plate | FGP Rock Sliders | 4x Innovations Rear Plate Bumper with tire carrier
Thanks for the video, Tim! I'm glad you wanted to share this cool repair. I'm really happy with how it turned out on my driver's door and am planning to do the other doors soon.
I also have a full set of used stoppers I'm planning to rebuild with an extra kit I bought... figured someone on the board would be interested -- maybe we could do a trade and then I could rebuild the next set! "JZiggy door thingy refurbishment service"
Nice video Tim! Always love to see what you are up to in the garage! I paid right around 50 bucks for a single door check off an ebay seller direct from Japan, so you are about right there! I wish I had seen this kit last year! The other ones on my rig are near perfect as no one really used the back seat or passenger seat.
Thanks for the video, Tim! I'm glad you wanted to share this cool repair. I'm really happy with how it turned out on my driver's door and am planning to do the other doors soon.
I also have a full set of used stoppers I'm planning to rebuild with an extra kit I bought... figured someone on the board would be interested -- maybe we could do a trade and then I could rebuild the next set! "JZiggy door thingy refurbishment service"
I messaged our Russian Comrades and they are stoked about the video. I'm hoping they ship me some Russian Vodka.
__________________ "My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it!"
Enjoyed the video, particularly where he uses different size drill bits to drill out one side of the spot weld on the cover. Not sure if I missed it, but I didn't notice where he either epoxied or spot welded the cover back on. Not sure what would hold it. Two thoughts: I think that I would just replace the driver's door mechanism with one from the mostly unused back door. I know I would give up the first half open hold, but don't think that is used very much. Also, this might be a quick way to tell the difference between a 150K mile and a 250K mile vehicle.
The spot weld looks likes it just holds everything together for production and assembly line purposes, once bolted to the door it is bolted together making the lack of spot weld a non issue.
The spot weld looks likes it just holds everything together for production and assembly line purposes, once bolted to the door it is bolted together making the lack of spot weld a non issue.
This is correct. Once the door checker is bolted to the door, the two halves stay together. The tack welds aren't needed. I forgot to mention this in the video.
__________________ "My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it!"
Enjoyed the video, particularly where he uses different size drill bits to drill out one side of the spot weld on the cover. Not sure if I missed it, but I didn't notice where he either epoxied or spot welded the cover back on. Not sure what would hold it. Two thoughts: I think that I would just replace the driver's door mechanism with one from the mostly unused back door. I know I would give up the first half open hold, but don't think that is used very much. Also, this might be a quick way to tell the difference between a 150K mile and a 250K mile vehicle.
See the two posts above regarding the spot welds.
As for swapping out one from the rear to the front, I don't know if I would do that on one of my rigs. You're probably right that most people open their doors all the way, but sometimes in tight parking situations, having that first stopping point might come in handy.
__________________ "My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it!"
As for swapping out one from the rear to the front, I don't know if I would do that on one of my rigs. You're probably right that most people open their doors all the way, but sometimes in tight parking situations, having that first stopping point might come in handy.
For what it's worth, the front door check and rear door strap have different part numbers, and are sided which means 4 unique parts one for each door. I'm not sure if the differences matter to a point where the swap wouldn't even be possible because parts don't fit, or if they would fit, but not retain the same functionality/ not function properly.
Thanks Timmy T. This is an easy fix for an annoying as hell fault. Just ordered the kit from the Russian ebay seller. You didn't need to use the extra supplied shims?
Thanks Timmy T. This is an easy fix for an annoying as hell fault. Just ordered the kit from the Russian ebay seller. You didn't need to use the extra supplied shims?
In our case it doesn't seem that we usually need them. I think they are there in case your stopper rod is also worn out, not just the plastic pieces inside. The ones I have rebuilt had plenty of holding power without the shims.
Thanks for bringing the knowledge!
I'll be interested to see how long the good function lasts. If it went 3 or 4 years, I guess it'd be worth it. I once bought a brand new door check for my driver's door. It was barely better than the worn-out one at first, and then it completely wore out in about a month. The design is suboptimal...it destroys itself. Look at the stay in a VW Golf --not an expensive car--- and you'll wonder how Toyota flunked this one!
Thanks for bringing the knowledge!
I'll be interested to see how long the good function lasts. If it went 3 or 4 years, I guess it'd be worth it. I once bought a brand new door check for my driver's door. It was barely better than the worn-out one at first, and then it completely wore out in about a month. The design is retarded...it destroys itself. Look at the stay in a VW Golf --not an expensive car--- and you'll wonder how Toyota flunked this one!
The factory plastic bits that bear against the rod are simple nylon plastic. These replacement ones are nylon filled with moly (MOS2) so I expect the wear will be much longer with more consistent friction. OEM+ in my mind
Thank you for doing this video! This has made my rig much more pleasant to get in and out of.
I had some things I did in addition to your video that I thought might be useful to share with a larger audience, who may not read what I've posted in my build thread.
I hope you're OK with me copy and pasting the below from my build thread here for others to see. Maybe it will help them.
Also,
@mtbtim
and
@JZiggy
if either of you need a new bumper or two for your personal vehicles let me know and I will drop a couple in the mail for you, free of charge since you did the legwork on figuring this rebuild/mod out. I have extras from the junkyard since I didn't need to use any for experimenting. Let me know if you want any!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unner
I went ahead and rebuilt all the door checkers in the third gen. It’s not something you realize is an issue, until it is pointed out to you that your doors don’t stay open and they just fly open with the slightest effort.
The truck has over 280k miles on it now, and it’s seen some rough terrain. I also used to get in and out of the truck A LOT for work. Like probably 15+ door cycles a day for several years. So my door checkers were about as worn out as they could be, probably more worn than most with this mileage even.
Getting them out is simple and easy, just like Tim shows in the video. Getting them apart isn’t too bad either. Just drill out the spot welds like Tim shows. I will say that not all of mine were you able to access the side of the spot weld Tim uses in the video because of the positioning of the bolt, so I had to use a center punch and drill through the other side. No big deal.
Like Tim mentions in the video, the “bumpers” for lack of a better word on the front doors were very worn and clinging on for life on mine. The way these bumpers had disintegrated had caused the metal stop plate that the bumper rests on to begin damaging the metal housing that the fixators rest in.
The passenger one was a little bent up, but not too bad. The driver one was very bent. I had to straighten that housing out with a large diameter punch because there was no way it was going to go back together right with the new parts. Pics of the driver side one before straightening are below.
I wanted to fix up these rubber bumpers because one, I didn’t want the metal housing to continue to get damaged and two, I wanted to have that nice cushion when the door does get opened all the way to the max. Gives it a little more luxury feel.
So, I started searching online to see if these were available, or how much a new checker would cost. The bushings are not available separately, and a new checker is $100. Not gonna happen when the whole rebuild kit was like $30 for all 4 doors.
While I was searching, I noticed that it looked like other Toyotas used the same style of bumpers on their checkers, namely Camry’s. I had the idea then that I might be able to harvest these from donor cars to use on my checkers. So, with the pick and pull junkyard being open another 90 minutes I threw some tools in a bag and headed out there.
There are never 4Runners here, so I wasn’t going to be able to pull them off donor 4Runner rear doors, but I did find a nice 2011 Camry. I popped open the rear door, got the panel off with a couple screws and some tugging and then the checker came right out just like the 4Runner ones. And it has the exact same bumper on it!
I didn’t want to buy the whole checker, because I had no need for the whole thing. I thought about trying to press that pin out of the end of the checker to get the new bushings on, but that seemed risky. What I did instead was took a very sharp razor blade and sliced the checker on the bottom side, straight up, You want to make a nice straight cut, until the rubber is able to be separated from itself. Now you can twist the bushing free of the checker.
Bingo, now you have a new bumper for your old 4Runner checkers. I went around the yard pulling various door panels seeing what vehicles had the same ones, and what kind of shape they were in. I pulled door panels off Camry’s from 1997-2011 and they all had the correct style of bumper. The Avalon uses a different system, and the Corolla doesn’t have the bumper at all from the factory. Makes sense being that it is the base model economy type car. I only bothered checking rear doors since they would be in the best shape overall. Some were in better shape then others, and by the time I was done I had a nice handful of them so I could experiment if needed. I went to pay and they let me go without a charge other than the $3 entry fee. So, for $3, and 90 minutes, including drive time I had a way to fix the checkers.
Now the only issue was that slice I had to put in there. You can probably just leave it like that without issue for awhile, but I wanted these to go another 280k miles. So what I did was put a little superglue into the cut on the bumper and then squeezed it together.
Good as new, and now I’m into the new door checkers about $35, maybe 8 hours total time, and saved about $350. Plus, I think these new checkers are stiffer than OEM ones, and will probably last longer. The doors feel really solid now, which is nice.