The Adventures and Build of my 2007 4Runner!
 

Hello all! My name is Nathan. Welcome to the wonderful world of my 4Runner, the story and build of my 2007 SR5 4.7L V8 in Titanium Metallic. I’m creating this thread because vehicle ownership is an adventure, right?! Just kidding!

I’m making this thread for two reasons, one of which is to document the adventures and build of mine and my families new 4Runner! And the second, I enjoy taking photos of vehicles, I've always been quite the enthusiast and no one cares to see photos of T4Rs except T4r enthusiasts.

A little about me - My name's Nathan. I am a 30 year old firefighter/paramedic out of north east Texas. My wife enjoys the outdoors as much as I do, and we've got two labs pups that also love to accompany us on our adventures. I've always been an automobile enthusiast and average about one new vehicle per year, although I would like to slow that down! I've owned several Toyota's before -

2012 Tundra Limited -
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My last vehicle was a 2019 Toyota Camry SE -
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I purchased the 4Runner in June of this year and have owned it for almost two months. I have always been a car enthusiast - when I was younger I enjoyed speed and muscle but around the age of 23 I got into Jeeps and the world of off-roading and overlanding. I've never owned a reliable jeep and always had issues, I've always been curious about 4Runners. I wanted something that could do some very mild exploring, off-roading, and overlanding. I also needed something with a lot of cargo space since this was going to be my only vehicle. I wanted it to be something I could put a ton of miles on, and still it would keep going. Obviously I wanted 4WD, but with my price range and wanting a V8, that just wasn't possible. The market on T4Rs in my budget was very low in my area. I had a budget of $10k and was able to find this 2007 SR5 V8 with one Texas owner and 195k miles on it with a tons of pages of service records. It spent a lot of time on the south coast of Texas so it does have some surface rust here and there on the body - but no major issues.

Here's the first picture I saw of the her - 3 hours away from my home in South Texas.
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Welcome home!! Finally made it after picking it up.
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No huge plans as of yet, just really driving around and enjoying her. I know that sounds kind of boring for a build thread, but I promise there will be plenty of great adventure stories.

Over the next few months I will be changing all fluids and going over everything mechanical for her first real test - a 3000 mile road trip across the western USA in October for two weeks.

Hope you guys enjoy the thread, and thank you being apart of our adventure!

First order of business - Fixing my garage. When we got the Runner home, we realized that it would not fit into our garage due to the door height. A little articulation and problem solved!
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Next order of business was front window tint and a brow -
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My other daily driver - a 2022 Schwinn AL Comp. I usually try and ride to work if I can!
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Next order of business - Fixing this leaky radiator. I've got a new Denso radiator, thermostat, and upper and lower hoses ordered and hoping to get them tomorrow and replace it myself in the next few weeks.
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She's also going in to the local Toyota dealer on thursday for -
two recalls
trans drain and fill
rear diff service
alignment
tire balance

Dropped off at the dealer today for -

Trans drain and fill
Rear diff drain and fill
Alignment
Tire balance
Two recalls & a rear license plate light repair!
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Welcome, congrats on your 4th Gen, and thanks for your first responder service. Looks like you found a great deal.

Curious, did the dealer do a full or partial exchange on the transmission?

Thank you!!! I am really enjoying it and trying to get everything up to par since this is the first older vehicle I’ve ever owned.

They did just a drain and fill!


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Everything is here and ready for the radiator swap on Wednesday!
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Beautiful sunrise leaving work this morning!
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Gorgeous truck mate (I am not biased :biggrin1: )

Thank you! I’m loving it so far.


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Time to get started!
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Good luck! The only issue I had with the entire process was getting the radiator hose clamps off. I probably should have gotten new hoses but so far no leaks after 5 months. Also I think I'm going to buy a tool for hose clamps.

Whoever owned it before me swapped out the clamps with the ones with screws in them. They are the real MVP.

Everything went back in without a hitch. Now just getting some coolant into it and cycling it through!

Nice! You definitely got lucky with that. Did you flush with OE red coolant or distilled water?

The Adventures and Build of my 2007 4Runner!
 

I didn’t bother flushing the block, just drained everything out of the radiator, hoses(since I put new ones in), and thermostat housing since I replaced that as well.

Previous owner had some universal Prestone amber/gold colored in there so hopefully no issues arise from the Toyota pink mixing with what was left of that.