[gm350reratliff]

Hit a milestone with the 5th gen yesterday.



With that coming up, I changed the oil, rotated the tires and added some SDHQ wheel speed sensor guards. I need to pull the Icons and rebuild them but I’ll have to heal from knee surgery first.

[DeltaSkyWolf]

Awesome build! Curious on your suspension issue with the passenger side being higher. Did that ever subside?

Have you done anything else to the suspension thus far?

[gm350reratliff]

Originally Posted by DeltaSkyWolf

Awesome build! Curious on your suspension issue with the passenger side being higher. Did that ever subside?

Have you done anything else to the suspension thus far?

Yes, I adjusted the coilovers and was able to level the 4runner. Haven’t done much else to it except general maintenance and drive it. It’s been a great vehicle so far. Looking forward to the next 100k.

[DeltaSkyWolf]

Originally Posted by gm350reratliff

Yes, I adjusted the coilovers and was able to level the 4runner. Haven’t done much else to it except general maintenance and drive it. It’s been a great vehicle so far. Looking forward to the next 100k.

Awesome. What made you go with those instead of an ICON or King system?

[gm350reratliff]

Originally Posted by DeltaSkyWolf

Awesome. What made you go with those instead of an ICON or King system?

The coilovers are Icon. I got them because I like the Digressive valving and I got a pretty good deal on them at the time.

[gm350reratliff]

Did some maintenance to the 5th gen recently. For a while I’ve been hearing a rattle coming from the front suspension on this thing but everything seemed tight when jacked up but I knew that wasn’t actually the case. I guess I’m a bad owner but I skipped the recommended 50k service interval on the Icon coilovers and put about 90k on them instead. Same story on the Camburg arms. A while back, I pulled out the Icons and found my rattle. The bottom bearing on one of the coilovers was worn out, worse yet was that little bit of play actually caused the lower bolt to seize in the spacers and bearing. I had to carefully cut the bolt without messing up the LCA mount or the coilover itself.



I threw in the OEM coilovers with a cheap spacer on top just to be able to move the 4runner, maybe even drive it, while I had SDHQ completely rebuild the Icon coilovers.

Where’s the beef?!


The Icons came back from SDHQ earlier in the week so today I installed the freshly rebuilt Icons and some Total Chaos UCAs that I purchased a while back. What a difference having the Icons rebuilt and new UCAs make!

That’s more like it!


Hopefully the shop here in town can get it aligned tomorrow. Then it’s time for the next thing on the list.

[gm350reratliff]

Good bye and good riddance Entune!

Installed this Alpine ILX-107 with the Maestro interface in the 5th gen over the weekend. So nice having something in there that not only works better and sounds better but also looks better. Had the new dash piece custom painted to match as well.

[gm350reratliff]

Did this little 5 minute mod tonight I found in this thread: Secondary Air Pump Mod Validity



I wondered why didn’t I do this as one of the first mods. I guess I just figured there was some type of filter in there but upon checking tonight, no filter.



Hopefully it didn’t suck too much dust in over the last 4 years and 112k miles.

[FoneRunner]

Originally Posted by gm350reratliff

Did this little 5 minute mod tonight I found in this thread: Secondary Air Pump Mod Validity



I wondered why didn’t I do this as one of the first mods. I guess I just figured there was some type of filter in there but upon checking tonight, no filter.



Hopefully it didn’t suck too much dust in over the last 4 years and 112k miles.

Great build Ron! On that air pump, the factory filter that degrades and gets sucked into the engine is actually inside that housing with the T25 screw on top...not sure from this post if you realized that. Cheers!

[4xColt]

Originally Posted by gm350reratliff

Backing up in time a little bit to update my 5th gen's progess, I installed a Midland handheld CB radio and Wilson Lil' Wil antenna. The install was pretty simple and it works pretty good as well.


Ran the coax down the rear door sill and through the tail light housing opening.

Hey gm350reratliff,

First off, NICE rig! I have a new super white myself, thanks for the inspiration.

Sorry for this blast from the past but do you happen to have a link to those white cable guides that you used?

Thanks
Colt

[gm350reratliff]

Originally Posted by 4xColt

Hey gm350reratliff,

First off, NICE rig! I have a new super white myself, thanks for the inspiration.

Sorry for this blast from the past but do you happen to have a link to those white cable guides that you used?

Thanks
Colt

Sorry for the late reply, I don’t frequent the forums much anymore.

If I remember correctly, those white cable holders are either from amazon or ikea. Yes, ikea and I’ve only had one come loose in over 4 years. I really just used what I had in the garage at the time and that’s what I had.

[4xColt]

Originally Posted by gm350reratliff

Sorry for the late reply, I don’t frequent the forums much anymore.

If I remember correctly, those white cable holders are either from amazon or ikea. Yes, ikea and I’ve only had one come loose in over 4 years. I really just used what I had in the garage at the time and that’s what I had.

Thank you

[gm350reratliff]

A little update to this thread. We honestly haven’t done much to our 5th gen except drive it and basic maintenance. It’s been a great vehicle for us. In fact, we just explored some trails with it in southern Colorado and it handled all of them with ease.




With that said, our Ridge Grapplers had nearly 75k miles on them, still had roughly 30% of the tread left but seemed to be prone to flat spots and there were some cracks, cuts and gouges that were concerning. Never really had any issues with them though. The Pro Comp wheels have also aged. One is stained from something that was sprayed on it and the rest had faded to the point that they just didn’t look good anymore.

Upgraded the wheels to some Method Racing 317 in that beautiful titanium finish wrapped in some 285/70/17 Ridge Grapplers. We were pleased with the last set of tires so we kept that the same.


We also updated the fog lights to some Diode Dynamics SS3 SAE/DOT pro yellow pods. The previous fogs were some china Rigid knock-offs I received for almost nothing. Huge improvement with these SS3 lights! I was hoping to capture the difference with my iPhone but, pictures just don’t do these justice. Nice, horizontal pattern like a fog light should be.


We also upgraded the snorkel head to a Sy-Klone prefilter. Tired of collecting bugs and worrying about it collecting snow and rain. Hopefully this keeps the air filter a little cleaner!


I also finally got a chance to detail it and get a coat of wax on it. It still cleans up nice!

[gm350reratliff]

Bolam Pass - Sept. 2021

We took a last minute vacation to Durango, CO in September last year. We pulled our camper up with our Tundra and also drove the 5th gen up to explore the San Juan mountains a little more. We decided to check out Bolam Pass, which basically goes from Purgatory off of highway 550 and drops you out on 145 between Rico and Telluride. Mostly easy trail with a few rough sections but a lot of stream crossings, lush green forest and amazing views. Here's a few pics from that trip;

[gm350reratliff]

Started hearing a knocking sound from the left front tire over small, quick bumps. Took a look and discovered, like so many others, we broke the Icon top mount. Ordered the parts from Icon which took a while to come in (very slow process to order replacement parts directly) and swapped the top mounts out on both CO's. Thought about doing a full rebuild on them since it's been a while but just didn't have the time right now. I also didn't want it pulled apart in the driveway of the house we're renting. I may even just swap them out with something else someday. Here's what was making that noise;



Snapped right off as soon as I touched it with the ratchet.


New and improved top mount:


Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics of the mount on the CO or with them installed again on the 4runner but we all know what they look like. I'll call it fixed for now but I probably do need to fully rebuild the Icons. I'm really thinking of swapping them out for something else but that will have to wait.

We started this fun process so only necessary repairs and mods for now.