4th Gen Baja inspired build

[Chad30]

Hi everyone, I'm a long time lurker but fairly new to the forum. The forum helped me a lot and I wanted to try and contribute some and possibly help someone with some useful info. A few years ago I was fortunate enough to go check out the Baja 1000 in Mexico and since then was very inspired by "Baja" race trucks and vowed that I'd someday do a similar style build. I live in Hawaii and these are not popular here to say the least, particularly I'd imagine because we don't have the vast desert type land etc. that a long travel type of suspension would really be useful on however I'm doing one anyway! I may someday get to ship it over to Cali or Nevada to play around with one day!

I'll try and post a little at a time after work until I get to the current stage...

I finally desired on a 4th gen Runner to do it on and luckily a friend happened to be selling one! Here it is stock, a 2005 Gallactic gray 4runner Sport.

 

[Chad30]

I had my mind set on a long travel front, I've read mixed reviews about long travel as a daily driver but my theory is if I'm going to do it I might as well go as all out as I could afford and after selling my Tacoma to tackle this project I had enough to budget the long travel and knowing myself would regret it if I went less so Camburg +3.5 was what I decided on and Fox coilovers so got those ordered up! They told me it would take a few weeks to a month to get my kit together and Fox said about the same so the build time with shipping, I was looking at about a 2 month wait. No biggie as I had a lot to prep for before the suspension would get installed anyway. In the meantime after a few days of looking at a bunch of pictures online at differrent fenders, I finally decided I liked the Glassworks Unlimited fenders the best and ordered those. They took about 5 weeks and here try are... They took a lot longer than I thought but wasn't in a rush and the quality of them was worth the wait.

 

[Chad30]

I was originally planning on buying a kit and spraying the back of them with a spray on "bedliner" for some protection but later made some calls and found a truck bed shield shop that did it for me for $50 bux. That was way less than it would've costed me for a kit and saved me some work so off they went!

 

[Chad30]

Originally planning on mounting them and just spraying them a hot rod black until budget allowed for paint later. As the days went by I decided to sell one off 1911's and other things so I could budget in paint work! While we were figuring out my budget and what I wanted done I knew I wanted a little extra height and ordered a 1.25" body lift from 4crawler, not wanting to cut any corners I added the steering extension and the upgraded hardware and super blocks.

 

[Chad30]

I couldn't find the time to get it done (I live in an apartment ) and it's tough to plan on my jobs as I have to bother my dad or a friend to do it at their place etc. So I got a friend to do it on the side for me one day. I figured it would be a good idea to get some things done while I'm waiting on my scheduled date at the paint shop. Here it is after the 1.25" body lift.

 

[Chad30]

In the meantime after trying to find a bumper, I could not quite find one I really liked. I then was fortunate enough to get referred to troymclure here from another member after seeing his was just the style I was looking for! So we immediately got that started and off to measuring!

 

[Chad30]

A couple of pics of the bumper build. I basically let troymclure know what I wanted, the light bar dimensions, bull bar style and he made it happen! He was very patient with me and all my little add ons along the way, I can't thank him enough!

 

[Chad30]

He kept me updated with pics!

 

[Chad30]

My appointment finally arrived! I posted my stock front bumper and fenders on craigslist in hopes to recover some funds and found a buyer! $350 for everything , goes towards my paint and he was happy with the deal, win win situation!

I was originally just going to go with the same color but decided to go ahead with Magnetic gray since My Tacoma was that color and I liked that color a little better and the door jambs etc was close enough that I didn't have to spend the extra $$ to have that redone as well.

 

[Chad30]

Fender fitment coming along...

 

[Chad30]

I decided a 20" rigid combo bar would fit my size and budget needs and surpass my current lighting needs.

 

[Chad30]

My goodies are starting to trickle in. Here are the Fox Long travel coilovers.

 

[Chad30]

A sneak peak at the upper control arms.

 

[Chad30]

Rear Fox Factory reservoir shocks.

 

[Chad30]

I didn't snap pics but originally was just going to do non resi shocks and lift coils in the rear for now but the big bit me hard and ended up ordering an Icon track bar and All Pro lower links , uppers are on backorder, as well as the reservoir rear shocks. For the price they looked solid and are heavy and as solid as they look in the pics online! Then ended up ordering stainless brake lines and Wheelers off road super front bump stops. The couple hundred here and there I kicking my butt but hopefully all worth it. A couple of weeks in at the paint shop and my bumper has arrived!

 

[Chad30]

a little bit of test fitting and adjusting and off to the powder coaters!

 

[Chad30]

Time to pick up the Runner from the paint shop! Body work on the fenders came out pretty nice, I'm happy!

 

[Chad30]

Bumper back from powder coating.

 

[Chad30]

Got the bumper installed, mounted and wired up the light bar. Wired up the Gen-right led 's on bumper and the corner marker lights together to the daytime running lamp/ blinker wiring. Still deciding on a possible led strip to wire up to the old corner lamp wiring.

 

[Chad30]

Appointment for the suspension install at 4 Wheel Parts comin up... Very anxious at this point!