Loose Axles 2007 V8 4Runner Build Thread
 

Hi guys!

I have been meaning to create this thread for months to go alongside my youtube videos and instagram, but kept being way too busy to ever get to it. With how much this community has helped me, I wanted to do my part and share some of my learnings and mishaps (lol) over the past year of ownership as I’ve built up my 2007 4Runner.

Socials:
http://instagram.com/looseaxles
Loose Axles - YouTube

Day 1 - April 2022

After running a pair of 3rd Gen 4R’s for a few years, I decided to move up to the 4th gen platform. I ended up picking up this 2007 4runner with 259km locally in Calgary. Lucky for me it was CLEAN with ZERO rust. Gotta love those BC vehicles!

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As a precautionary measure, I ended up doing the following maintenance in the first week.
- Timing belt and Water Pump
- Tensioner
- Rear Brakes and Pads
- Air filter
- Oil Change
- Spark plugs
- New windshield

Regrettably, I started this build over a year ago now and wish I documented it with the times, but I still have a few pictures and memories of the early days!

Right after all the basic maintenance I went straight into a lift and wheels - no more mom vibes!

For starters, I took home the following:

- 4x Black Rhino Chambers with 285/70/17 K02’s
- Icon Rear Coils
- Icon Rear Coil Conversion Kit
- Fox 2.0 Front Coilovers (Adjusted to 2.5” lift)
- Fox R/R 2.0 rear shocks
- MOOG Upper Spring isolators
- SPC UPA

Any regrets? A little bit. At first I was concerned a lot about body mounts and not having to chop them, now well into fabrication and cutting my vehicle to shit, I wish I went for a more offset wheel and a bigger tire to start. However, everything has performed really well.

Installing everything was fairly simple, minus the drivers side strut being seized to the truck haha. That took a few hours. I managed to get everything installed and headed for an alignment. A few days later I put some simple ditch lights on the rig as I was ready to hit the trails.


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Following the lift and tires, I was tired of wondering if the V8 had any growl to it and had a custom stainless steel 2.5”-3” exhaust with a Flowmaster Super 10 installed. It sounds super mean and I still love it. I was thinking of also doing the y-pipe at the same time but opted out as I wasnt too sure if I had done enough research and wanted to change the entire system at that point.

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After a few weeks, I decided I was tired of the lack of tint and got 30% over the dyed windows and then matched the front 2 windows. Way better for the sunshine and privacy.

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Man! I wish I got started on this thread a longer time ago. After a few camping trips I realized how much nicer it would be to have some more lights and roof top storage…. enter a Sherpa Princeton rack with an Xtreme LED X6S lightbar. Super happy with the quality from both companies on this one. I also decided to create my own decals and fairing with my Cricut. I love how it turned out.

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After some much needed cleaning, a few little mods (LED replacement bulbs, SAIS bypass, Diff breather, and some much needed trimming, the truck was looking pretty good and ready to go. I ended up picking up a princess auto awning of a buddy of mine and 2 cabellas gun cases for the roof rack. I have full videos on each on my channel!

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After looking at those 33’s tucked in my fender wells for what felt like forever, I decided it was time to throw on some 1.25” spacers and cut those body mounts for a little extra stance. I ended up picking up some Husky Liners Long John mudflaps for the rear and front as well. (The fronts have since been practically destroyed by now haha).

Important to note, I also ended up finally getting some armour on the rig in the form of OK Xpeditions tranny and engine skid plates. Highly recommend them. I also forgot to add, sometime along here I threw on a .5” 4crawler off-road body lift. It’s made a massive difference for clearance and assessing components.

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After a few more trips out and some transportation of a BUNCH of heavy ass steel, I realized the stock bump stops might not be doing it for the runner with the added lift. So I got front and rear Durobumps… what a difference! I really noticed the cushion on some of the harder hits under load. Impressed with them so far and cant see myself switching any time soon.

During this time I also switched in an Auxbeam switch panel.. and let me tell you… Auxbeam has awful customer service. The panel and switch both came malfunctioning and I couldn’t get ahold of anyone for 3 months. Seriously. They finally sent me a new one after I sent them multiple videos of the issue. Regardless, it’s been helpful for organizing all the lights and is pretty clean all things considered.

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Chase lights! Got some cheap amazon LED light pods and mounted them to the back of the Sherpa rack. Wired them down the rack and to the Switch Panel.

Almost caught up to present day. In between all this I did a bunch of fluids and some other maintenance items. Shoutout Redline fluids!

Front Bumper Progress!

After a while, I realized that the stock look was great, but I was getting tired of trimming my front bumper and wanted a little more aggressive look up front, and an added winch. So I chatted with a buddy and we started building a front bumper. My buddy Justin has been phenomenal at teaching me a ton of stuff and has made some great judgment calls on the whole thing.

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The bumper delete looked kinda cool. NGL. Cutting off the fender liners was a great time and took some commitment, but we did it - no going back now!

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Mocking up some angles and heights

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Took some time to refinish all the paint along the body and front clip.

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Slowly building a mountable frame - all it takes is one rock…
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Little addition!

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Did somebody say hoops?

As I was waiting to finish mocking up the winch plate and working with Justin to come up with ways to create a little more room, I noticed something glaringly out of place…

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Man those OEM washer fluid reservoirs are terrible! So I found a few tutorials and made my own out of a Dorman coolant bottle. I made a video on the install in case you haven’t seen the other 9000 write ups :kiss:

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Slowly getting my welds to not look like rabbit poop!

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Finished product! I accidentally trimmed a little much on one pump and had to reseal the entire unit, but thats life. Pretty happy with the end result.

And now we arrive to present day.

Managed to get some Vivid Lumen FNG3’s mounted up on the bumper. Just made some simple tabs for them to hang off. Im debating about putting some sheet steel over top to cover everything, but haven’t quite committed yet! That might be a today project. Other than that, we managed to bend the power steering and AC line behind the rad support and made enough room to fit a mock-up winch in completely behind the tubes which will make plating the front super easy. Measured everything out and now we are just waiting for our metal guy to send some pictures of some plate concepts. Also got he winch plate itself mounted on.

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Managed to get those AC and PS lines bent bent behind the rad support bracket. Pretty clean bend. WAY more room for the winch.

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Picked up my new Dobinson IMS coilovers today. Really happy with the look and feel of them. These are gotta be a huge upgrade with the 2.5 shock body.

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I also got a qoute for 300 CAD a wheel for -10 white KMC Lobos. Im really tempted as they are on close out and thats a great price. I wanna go to 315/70/17 duratracs and get rid of my spacers. Trying to see if I could fit em’

Now comes the fun part of getting everything installed and eventually aligned. I was thinking my cam tabs are probably frozen again as its been a year... which sucks.. I might try hitting them with penetrating fluid for a few days here and see If I can break them free. With the extended travel IMS coilovers, I am thinking ill probably need to get that LCA loose to get the new coils in. I was hoping to avoid an alignment and just mark my current camber, toe and caster, but im not sure that is possible...

So now comes the task of figuring out what to do - welcome to my mind! I was thinking of maybe getting a set of super pro LCA's with the upgraded cam tabs, but havent done quite enough research yet. I am thinking 35's are maybe in the future, so I want to ensure im prepared for that.