So I decided to finally spring for a locker this weekend
Ideally I planned to mount the compressor in the quarter panel cubby in the back - an idea I got from a fellow forum member a while back - however I can't find the thread for the life of me, or relatively any pictures of a compressor being mounted outside the engine bay. Which is odd because I know many of us have done so.
I was curious if anyone here who has done this would be willing to show how they did it, what was required, what the mount is like, if it fit with the black insert in place, anything of that nature. Typically I would stumble through this on my own and be in no rush to get it done but I just made plans to go do a 20+ mile offroad trip with my dad in about 3-4 weeks, so now I'm aiming to get as much done as possible beforehand so when everything gets here I can install it as fast as possible
Other location ideas are appreciated too so long as they're outside the engine bay - it's way too crowded under there as is
(Compressor in question is the CKMA12)

My wife stuck the compressor for her Viair kit in the left side rear quarter panel area of her '96, using a HD shelf bracket: habanero's 1996 4Runner Build-Up Thread - Page 113 - YotaTech Forums

I have an Arb dual compressor mounted in the storage cubby on my '99. No pics, but it's pretty straightforward. I was concerned with the cubby pulling loose from the interior panel, since it's only held on by some melted plastic posts, so I took those off, cleaned it really well, and gorilla snot glued it on, and then put short screws in where the melted posts had been. It's been in there for years now.

My wife has hers plumbed into the car with a 2.5 gal air tank underneath, I just cut a hole in the cubby door for the quick connect fitting to poke out of, and drilled a bunch of holes in it for ventilation.

Good to know you were able to wiggle it in there, that cubby can barely fit my jumper cables so I wasn't holding my breath over it holding a compressor, at least not without some modification. Did you use a bracket of sorts or did you just mount it directly to that black plastic piece? I was thinking of doing that latter for the time being just for the sake of saving time but I've never actually held one of these compressors in my hands to know how big they are, but I've heard they're pretty damn small
The left side was ironically my second choice if the cubby didn't work out; having the cabin vent there would give really good air flow. Really the only reason I wanna go with the other side is cause the door already exists and I don't have to fab anything, but if push comes to shove then I'm not opposed to it either

I did the compartment mod to store more junk and would easily fit the compressor ...look up storage compartment mods on this forum. From there you can see lots of room made and easily. You can also look up compressor storage...many threads on that too.

I believe that the storage compartment was more designed for road assistance stuff in other countires. a road warning folding triangle and the straps to hold it.
its a little thing ....but toyota could have made a storage unit that did not have the triangles storage and made one big open area for countries they did not also supply the triangles.. They could have also made a smaller storage on the driver side. Prob would have added $1 or two in production...Id pay 10 for a factory molded compartment and a access door driver side now

I did mount it directly to the plastic 'inner pocket' on the storage cubby, but like I said above, I did reinforce that. Would it have held without the reinforcements? Maybe, but I didn't think so. It's been in there for a long while now, I think it would have fallen off by now if it was going to (I just jinxed myself, lol).



I just sort of quickly slapped it in there when I installed it, no external plumbing/tanks/fittings, it's just there to air up again when rejoining pavement in the boonies. So I jsut drilled some holes in the door for ventilation and a bigger hole for the fitting, and the air hose quick disconnect just fits onto it through the door in normal use.


NOTE: I originally had my orange coiled poly long hose hooked directly to the compressor fitting, but that gets HOT when you're airing all 4 tires back up from 12 to 40 psi, and I had it blow out the first time I used it. So I got a short section of tougher hose that can handle the heat and that buffers the more delicate poly hose from the compressor fitting's heat.

At some point it would be nice to install an air tank somewhere and plumb this to an outside fitting, but so far, this works great. I'd be fetching the hose from the inside anyhow, this way I just leave it attached, lower the rear window, and it stretches around to all 4 corners.