Those SCS wheels are going to look AWESOME with the red rings! Can't wait to see it finished! Following this build!

I followed your 3rd gen for a long time, and I'm excited to see where this goes. Keep up the quality work!

Update: Ordered Toytec Boss Aluma series 2.5 lift kit and JBA upper control arms.

Been busy the last few weeks prepping the 4Runner for 34" tires. Completed the body mount chop, cut and hammered the pinch welds.


Relocated the fender mount screw and trimmed a lot off the rocker endcap.


Also cut about 4 inches off the bottom edges of the front bumper and moved the fender liner forward, but didn't get a pic of that.

Hoping all this, along with a 1" body lift will be enough to at least be able to daily drive the 4Runner with 34's.

Looks like some serious plans for the new rig. Getting right into the hammer and torch part, I like it.

There is no better pizza in the world than Santaniello's Glenlord Pizzaria - I lived on Glenlord road right down the street as a kid. So was surprised to see "Stevensville" as your location.

Yeah, nothing like cutting up a brand new vehicle. lol.

Small world. I live just off Glenlord Rd, only about a few hundred yards from Santaniello's.

What did you use to paint the silver bumper inserts?

Did you use something to protect the red paint from getting any of the black on there?

remove them. its easy. front can be done without removing the bumper. the rear you gotta drop the bumper to get to the clips.

good old fashion masking tape works well when i did mine.

I left the inserts on the bumpers and just used masking tape around them. I used Rustoleum semi-gloss spray paint.

Awesome.Thank you all. I think I'll do the same until I do something different.

I've been working on a small project to keep busy while waiting for my backordered lift components to come in. I don't know why Toyota didn't put some type of door on the side cubby opening in the cargo area. Do they think items are just going to sit in there without falling out? Ridiculous.

I took some 1/16" thick aluminum and cut out the shapes to fill the openings. I also had to hammer in the curvature to match the curve of the plastic panel. I left some tabs on the bottom of the covers, and cut slits for the tabs to fit into. I finally got them fitting pretty good.


The small lower piece will be permanently installed by bending the tabs. The upper piece will be removable. I designed and 3D printed some knobs and cam lock parts:


Cut some slits in the upper opening for the cams to lock into, and got everything working the way I wanted:


Painted the parts with black textured truck bed coating. This matches the color/texture of the surrounding plastic close enough.


Final installation:

Installed Diode Dynamics Pro yellow fog light kit:


Bought some decals to cover up the SCS logo in the wheel center caps. I think the red Toyota symbol looks pretty sharp and matches the red and black color theme of my truck.


Also, my backordered lift finally came in. So big things should be happening soon.

Lift finally installed today!


I was surprised that I got almost 4" of lift in the front with the Toytec coilovers at their standard setting. I know I don't have any additional weight on the truck yet.
Do you think they will settle at all? Is this too much? Will it cause any damage?

I have an alignment on Monday, and then wheels and tires soon after that.

I got my wheel rings and sliders back from the powdercoater. They turned out really well.






I don't know, these might be too pretty to put on the truck. I wouldn't want them to get dirty! lol

I'm going to coat the underside of the sliders with rubberized undercoating to help prevent stone chips, before I install them. Also waiting for some warmer weather to install the wheel rings. Brrrr!

I‘ve been working on my custom roof rack quite a bit lately. It will be similar to the one I built for my 3rd gen several years ago. The main purpose for the rack is to have a place to mount lights front, rear, and sides. And also to be able to mount things (mainly kayaks) on top. First I designed it in CAD:


Side view:

Top view:

Front view:


Its a simple low profile tubing design with 5 aluminum T-slot pieces for mounting things.


It will use black anodized 3” x .75” T-slot pieces from 80/20:



It will have two 18” lights in the front. (I wanted to do a single 36” light, but Diode Dynamics doesn’t make one in that length, so went with two 18’s). Two 12” lights in the rear, and three 6” lights on each side. I ordered the lights last Black Friday:


After the design was finalized, I ordered some custom bent 1.75” tubing from 4xInnovations. Same tubing size and bend radii as my rock sliders, so should match nicely. Started welding the tubing pieces together:



Here is the tubing setting at the correct height (on wood blocks) on the 4runner.


I had to create some hooks and a pulley system to hoist it up to the garage rafters and then be able to gently lower it onto the truck’s roof by myself. Worked great!

Lastly, I was able to get the two front cross-bars welded in place:


Currently working on the mount pieces for the aluminum extrusions, and then all the light mounts.

More to come!