Hey guys!
Want to say hi and thank you for all the help you've offered me so far! I decided to start an actual project thread after asking waaaay to many individual questions on here.
I had been looking for an 86 runner for a long time, it is the year I was born. After months of looking around I stumbled on this beauty
I should also add that I have no experience working on any sort of car besides changing my oil. Everything I have done so far was learned from YouTube and you guys, especially KidV. I wanted a car that I could learn how to wrench on, and this seemed to be the best option all around.
I found it on craigslist. Main reason I liked it so much was because it had the 22re rebuilt and bored out recently, only about 10,000mi on the rebuild and new clutch. Also had a exhaust header installed.
Cosmetically it needs plenty of work both inside and out. But I wanted to take care of all the mechanical issues before anything else, especially with winter coming up.
Sooo, based on KidVs recommendation I changed all my fluids and did a basic tune up before tackling the suspension. First thing I did was put kyb monomax shocks all around. I really like these things, good combination of smooth ride and light crawling ability. They went in pretty smooth, except for me breaking a rear shock lower retaining bolt in the leaf spring seat, which required a trip to yota Jim's, awesome place, not the last time I will bring it up.
After that it was time for the front end. I wanted to put a small lift on, and I decided to replace almost the whole steering assembly including tie rods, inner outer and sleeve, pitman arm and idler arm. While I was under there I also replaced upper and lower ball joints, and put in the toytec 2" ball joint spacer lift. All the parts besides the spacers were OEM or equivalent breakable parts, mostly made by 555. I got an alignment done and she's driving great
Then it was time to deal with the rear leafs, which were both saggy and on aluminum blocks, leaving about 2" between the bump stops. So I installed an "add a leaf" into the spring packs and removed the blocks, doubling my suspension travel and giving it a much smoother ride. It also leveled things out a bit
Then a few days ago the starter went out. So again, I went to yota Jim's. Honestly, I should admit it, but I didn't even know exactly what part of the engine the starter was (don't judge), so I just asked Jim to pull one for me, looked at the part, figured out where it was on the 22re and did the swap... It worked great!!!! Thing starts in a flash every time now. I read about some sort of wiring flaw that causes the starters to fail, so I am planning on doing that upgrade soon.
Other than that, I feel like I am pretty good to go mechanically, but I am also going to replace the engine mounts soon since the motor is really jumpy when it cranks.
Only other things I am worried about are the differentials. The front one has oil that looked like metallic paint when I changed it and I'm guessing that is from something grinding? I will check the new oil soon to see if it looks like that again. I installed rare earth magnets on all the drain plugs just in case. And then there's the rear diff... I think the main housing gasket went bad or something because it looks like someone tried to caulk all the way around it. It doesn't really leak at all but it seems suspicious.

I picked up a pair of nerf bars yesterday. The front mounts to a pair of bolts on the transmission support beam, but the rear mounts to the front I bolt of the leaf spring and I have heard these bolts are notoriously hard to remove. What is my best option?
1) cut the bolt, get a new one. I would like this to be last option since it would require slacking the weight on the spring.
2) get a pipe to put on the end of my 25" breaker bar and really let the bolt have it. Has anyone ever broken one of these bolts? They look beefy so I'm not sure if breaking it is a risk, but if it breaks I feel like that would be pretty dramatic with the spring coming loose.
3) give it the PB treatment for the next week or so.

Thoughts? I will upload pictures a bit later.

Cut the bolt, get a new one. There's a metal sleeve inside the bushing, and the bolt will be seized to that bushing. You will have to drop the springs to get that bolt out, and you may have to burn what's left of the bushing and get new bushings.

Use LOTS of antiseize when you put it all back together.

Seems like the perfect time to replace the leaf spring bushings all around. I have the energy suspension bushing kit that comes with the replacement sleeve. I will just have to get new bolts. Is it something Ace would have? I'm guessing as long as the bolt OD is the same as the sleeve ID and it is class 8, I should be good to go as long as the length is correct right?
Am I likely going to have to cut the bolts in the rear shackle as well?

Shackle doesn't have a sleeve, so you should be fine there. Any bolt of the right size and diameter can replace the pin, but I recommend finding a metric stainless. It'll cost more, but it'll be metric like everythin else on the truck and be less likely to seize up again.

Does anyone know of a good primer on the electrical system of an 86? I want to learn more about it but can generally only find very general info that applies to all cars, or stuff that's very specific to one task. I would like to have a better understanding of the electric system before I do any work on it. Also, so really awesome wiring diagrams would be great, the ones in the Haynes manual are OK but don't actually show where anything runs throughout the truck. Thanks!