aemravan's build thread - project TacoRunner

[aemravan]

the ****ery with tracing down the clunk continues.

Spent the morning pulling the rear driveshaft off, again, to better clean up the splines and re-lube the slip yoke and make sure that I wasn't hyrolocking it with too much grease. Removed the rear spacer and installed proper m12 hardware between the diff flange and propeller shaft.

No difference. The clunk is back at it again.

After trying to get some better video angels to see if I had any interference on the lower links, or maybe the springs, one thing that jumped out at me was that the noise did not show up as loud on camera at the rear of the rig... A couple of folks suggested maybe its the front end making noise... and now I really don't know. Maybe what ever I'm feeling in the front diff in fwd has something to do with the clunk I'm hearing....

my next step is to completely isolate the front diff by removing both rcv axles and installing stub shafts... hell... maybe even drop the front driveshaft, not that it would matter at that point, and see if maybe, by some chance, the clunk is gone. I'm about 2 steps away from calling it quits and giving up. Anyone want a sweet 03 V8 TacoRunner??

 

[ignoranceisnotblis]

So I've been wanting to swap in a tesla style screen for my 4runner 4th gen but none are available ( there's a surprisingly low options for 4th gens for some reason) so I found a Tacoma 2 screen that seems to fit (I think) can anyone confirm if this might work?

US $578.34 49%OFF | Car Radio For TOYOTA Tacoma 2 N200 Hilux 2005-2015 Android GPS Navigation DVD Multimedia With Screen Auto Stereo
https://a.aliexpress.com/_msWSLpa

To fit on
My 4runner 2008, thoughts?

 

[aemravan]

So I've been wanting to swap in a tesla style screen for my 4runner 4th gen but none are available ( there's a surprisingly low options for 4th gens for some reason) so I found a Tacoma 2 screen that seems to fit (I think) can anyone confirm if this might work?

US $578.34 49%OFF | Car Radio For TOYOTA Tacoma 2 N200 Hilux 2005-2015 Android GPS Navigation DVD Multimedia With Screen Auto Stereo
https://a.aliexpress.com/_msWSLpa

To fit on
My 4runner 2008, thoughts?

I think you may in a wrong thread … but anyhow.. if you have access to Amazon that’s where I’d stick to over aliexpress.


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[aemravan]

Well… I found my clunk. And you wont believe what it was… after giving up for today with my early efforts not panning out like I had hoped I decided to make a run to the store for some remodeling supplies.. while leaving the neighborhood something in my mind said “hey.. let’s try the clunk while feeling the twin sticks in the t case” what do you know ? The clunk was right there, in my hand.

Come to find out , the 2wd/4wd selector stick pushes back under heavy load, and I’m assuming since the t case is not synchronized, causes some grinding / clunking as it wants to pop out of 2hi. Holding the stick forward keeps it from clunking 100% of the time while in 2hi. Amazing ….. all that effort. Lol.

Now the question is …. Is this a symptom of the twin stick mod and not having a factory j pattern shifter ? I don’t feel like it’s the body movement that’s forcing the shifter (but I didn’t tear down into the console to check.. however , the left stick literally doesn’t move leading me to believe that it’s something to do with the torque going through the case wanting to pop the shifter fork out.

Not looking to remedy this.. i don’t hammer down often , and from now on will just be mindful that I hold the stick forward if I have to. The question is whether or not all this testing has done any damage to the teeth, which I highly doubt since it’s silent and shifts butter smooth, but I think that a gear oil change is probably not the most terrible idea.


While I was at it, I pulled out the front RCV axles and installed the stub shafts to see what difference I feel and hear from the front being completely drivetrain-less. I can’t imagine the feeling I got was from the axles.. but aside from buying two replacements to throw in I don’t know how to go about troubleshooting.. maybe worthwhile , but ultimately I feel like the diff has to come out and get opened up for inspection..


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[aemravan]

now that I got my clunk figured out I am in the process of changing out the diff and t-case fluids while things are more or less apart. I found some replacement drain and fill plugs for the front diff that aren't 10mm allen heads but regular hex heads, excited to get those swapped out for easy fluid change down the road. It's always sketchy breaking loose the allen plugs.. mine are half stripped already..

While fiddling around with that I noticed something interesting that may explain, at least in part, the feeling I have in the front diff.. while putting in the stub shafts to keep oil from spilling in 2wd with the CV's out, I noticed that I could not spin the front driveshaft... even with the axles out.. this was suprising since I'm on the FJ t-case and in 2Hi on the selector sticks... but... spinning the front drive shaft I could see the rear shaft moving a little as well with the minor slop that I had.. this should not be happening as there should be no coupling of the front/rear shaft in 2Hi until you go to 4Hi.

This means something, very possibly related to the twin stick mod, like the synchro hub between 2hi and 4hi is sliding around just a little and possibly making slight contact to the hi gear engagement.. this was, afterall, the cause of the clunk I was feeling under heavy torque application.

So I am now thinking i'm onto something.... and the front diff isn't actually hurt (I really hope) but rather some of the clunkiness i'm feeling has got something to do with the front wheel back-spinning the diff and sometimes the T-case wanting to make partial engagement to 4hi. At least that is my current working theory .. I think I have a way to verify this, at least partially, by sticking the gopro under the rig again to see what the front drive shaft is doing while I'm driving around. It shouldn't be spinning at all in 2hi since my cv axle are currently out, so if it get any sort of movement or engagement I think I can confirm my theory ..

 

[aemravan]

So finally made some time for the 4runner today.

Before throwing the axles back on I went to see if the front driveshaft was spinning when in 2wd. Stuck the go pro down there and sure enough … I get front driveshaft movement even when in 2wd… going 2Lo stops the spinning, but in regular gear I get contact from the synchro to the 4wd gear. Hard to say how much force is making it through so it could just be a little rubbing that’s spinning the shaft but none the less it’s a little weird since it shouldn’t be.


Went to throw my front axles on, and before I did that decided to make sure my drain and fill plugs can be undone. Got them loose and went to pull the drain plug, and what do I find ? Chunks of metal. Decent size and amount. Shot front diff … clearly .. right ?

While dropping the diff I was running through the possible scenarios of getting this back to ECgs for warranty, having a local shop so it, finding a local off-road guy do it, etc. diff came out in about 20 minutes.

Once out.. a quick YouTube video convinced me to crack it open myself just to see.. I was super curious.

Boy am I glad I did. Nothing , not one thing , is busted writhing the arb locker or ring and pinion. I will do a more thorough clean and inspection once I get some brake cleaner, but… not a damn thing is broken

After a closer examination, the chunks I found match almost identical to the broken intermediate shaft I kept. It seems a few of these pieces were wedges somewhere and did not flush out when I did the flush.. needless to say I’m pretty stoked. Still a lot of work to get everything back together and into the rig but now at least I know.

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[aemravan]

I need to go to Walmart more often.. dirt cheap brake cleaner with tons in stock, unlike most of my auto parts stores around at double the cost and 1 -2 lingering cans. Even found the permatex black gasket maker at literally half the cost sitting right under the said brake cleaner shelf.

Did a quick round of brake cleaner spray down on all the parts last night. Hoping to spend a bit more time cleaning off all the old gasket/sealant from the mating surfaces and do a deep clean to make sure I got all the crud out from all the critical areas where the spider gears contact that housing. From there, it's just basic reassembly.. the ARB locker should go together in no more than 30 minutes and while that's going together I'll bake the Nitro ring gear to make sure it can slip on with ease. It took quite a beating to get it off of the locker yesterday.

All in all, if everything goes to plan, I hope to get this back together over the next couple of days and back into the rig by end of this weekend.


With regards to the FJ T-case: I'm really wishing my original one came with the factory J-pattern shifter so I wouldn't have thought of going the twin stick route.. I am under the impression that not having a factory shifter (which is spring loaded) is probably the reason I was getting the clunk under heavy throttle and am also seeing the front driveshaft spin when it shouldn't be.

With the cost of these things I can have a replacement on hand for the same money I could sell the twin-sticks for... so I'm keeping an eye out at local yards to see if one pops up that I can snag. Anyone else looking to do the FJ Tcase swap, save the time and money and just keep the J-pattern shifter... that means you don't need to crack the case open to remove the "pill", worry about losing parts and sealing the thing back up, and can do a super quick and easy swap. Not to mention that the J-pattern shifter is a lot easier to seal since it can be done with a single shift boot, unlike the issue I'm having the with the twin sticks.

 

[aemravan]

Told my wife I was baking cookies

The arb is back together and the nitro gear is cooling off. Loctite and torque coming tomorrow along with hopefully closing up the clamshell so that the permatex can have some time to set before the fluid goes in .. hopefully i put it back together properly but really.. first time messing with a diff so…. Lol.

The internals after the clean up look literally brand new. Only spot I found where it looks like a piece wedged itself was deep on the pinion gear, but it didn’t do much damage looks like.

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[rdruss]

Those are purty!

 

[aemravan]

Those are purty!

purty new lookin lol. I was not expecting to see this condition of gears inside to be honest.. even just from regular street use I figured you would have some notable wearing of the gears.... nope.. everything is looking brand spankin new, and I'm not complaining.. now I just need to track down the torque specs for the clamshell cover.. not finding anything anywhere so may just go with my gut feel... the ring gear from Nitro is calling for 70ftlbs and is larger than the bolts on the cover, so I may settle at 50-60ft-lbs if I can't find anything definitive.

 

[aemravan]

Dropping this here for reference. The clamshell bolt torque is 37ft lbs.

The nitro ring gear bolt torque is 70ft lbs.

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[aemravan]

Here goes nothing ..

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[4RunnerAquasport]

How big is that vise? I need to upgrade.

 

[aemravan]

How big is that vise? I need to upgrade.

It’s a 6” vice , worked great for the diff with some rubber pads I had left over from the FJ t case swap.


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[aemravan]

well... now that the front diff isn't actually blown up and shot like I suspected I guess I can stop looking for superduty/14 bolt axles.... dang.... :noidea:

Maybe one day though.. I did take a quick peek at some junk yard axles and started pricing out a rough estimate of a build.. I still feel like some time down the road, if I have some additional play money, but more importantly time and dedicated shop space, I would love to do a full 3-link front, 4-link rear SAS swap on the rig. The 5.7L tundra motor would be a lot more time consuming and I would probably be building that for a year.. but I feel like axles could be done reasonably.. It would be awesome to ultimately run 38-40" tires ... just because I love the look over anything else.. but when you reason it that way, that's at least $15k to spend for a beefier look :rofl:

Maybe I need to take baby steps and first get this junker back together and actually go out and do some wheeling and camping before I spend any more time dreaming of a future build lol

Made some more progress on the front diff yesterday and the intermediate shaft housing is now on and the permatex is drying. I figured with how cold and humid it currently is from all the rain that I would give it not 1, but 2 days before I go to fill it with any fluids, which should work out great by the time I hit the weekend. Hoping to get this sucker back into the rig and get everything assembled in between all the rain we've been getting.

 

[rdruss]

Isn't it amazing how our minds can turn from doom to " I need to do more mods", just by finding out what, or what's not, a clunking noise?

 

[aemravan]

Isn't it amazing how our minds can turn from doom to " I need to do more mods", just by finding out what, or what's not, a clunking noise?

I was literally thinking the same day today when I finished throwing the diff and axles back into the rig

Hopefully everything stays together , but seems to work ok so far.

No more Bluetooth axles

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[aemravan]

Well, I guess now it's just time to find some dirt roads and go beat on this thing.. city driving the last 3 days has proven to be good as far as I can tell, no issues so far and the seals/gaskets seem to be holding up just fine so I think I'll be throwing the front skid back on in the next day or two to finish buttoning everything up.



I started searching some local yards for a back-up fj transfer case that has the factory j-pattern shifter on it that I'm considering picking up and reworking/replacing in favor of the twin-stick setup I have.. not having a factory-finish with the dual shifter boots vs the useless added benefit of 2Lo is starting to bug me lol. The replacement should be super quick.. aside from cutting and rewelding the factory shifter to fit out in the opening.. I bet I could tackle the whole job in a matter of a couple of hours.. Hell.. I could probably sell the case and shifter setup for twice as much as the current cases at the junk yard are running..



Could be a good time to try and figure out how to trick the 4wd ecu into thinking the factory selector is still in place so I can get my VSC and TRAC lights to function as stock.... though I have been thinking about it and I'm not sure if I really want the factory ECU to try and correct a potential slide if it doesn't know I'm now in 2wd, on huge tires, lift, weight etc... Maybe the way to go is just to leave it as is and just pull the 2 bulbs from the dash..



Another thing I found while troubleshooting all this aftermarket build stuff is regular maintenance neglect that will need attention at some point.. my rear main seal looks like it's starting to leak which is something I'm definitely not looking forward to doing.. dropping the t-case is one thing.. but having to drop the trans is a completely other thing that I'm just mentally not prepared for. It's not a terrible leak, but definitely some build-up around the bellhousing. Maybe I'll some seal repair additives first and see if it helps it live a little longer. I could probably have spent more time investigating to see if its maybe the rear of the valve covers.. but i've replaced those gaskets twice now throughout my build process so it doesn't seem likely.





One thing i'll close this post out of with is regarding the fill and drain plugs on the front diff. Holy crap.. one of the best/cheapest "upgrades" I did.. I can't recall exactly what these came out of.. but I stumbled across a post somewhere talking about a toyota plug that eliminated the 10mm allen in favor of a 14mm hex head. This is a game change for me. My drain plug was all but stripped on the inside and I always hated the allen configuration on it... now let's just hope I don't snap this hex head off in the future

Edit* found the part numbers I bought. Dropping here for reference

 

[aemravan]

now that everything else it together I guess it's time to throw the drawer system back in the rig.. surprisingly I didn't get a single hit for the complete build out, including the stove.. but I guess it's for the best. I sunk a ton of money into it and was looking to sell it cheap as hell in favor of building something like the Milwaukee pack-out system that was a bit easier to remove for daily use when not camping. I don't have the time to be doing stuff like that lol. So in go the drawers.





One thing I wanted to do was make them a bit quicker to bolt in. i decided I didn't need the carpeting in the rear since it was in pretty bad shape anyhow and any time I had water back up in in the sunroof drains (damn these sunroofs! I'm about ready to tear mine out and weld it shut so I can replace the liner for added headroom lol). I ordered almost $100 worth of sound deadening to lay down in it's place.. but after doing some thinking quickly cancelled the order.. The rest of the rig is so loud that it seems like a waste. I have some plastic matts and aluminum insulating tape that I can lay under the drawers to serve the same purpose I think.. and it's free..



One thing I need to do is put in some nutserts so I can bolt the boxes down directly to the floor instead of using L-brackets to mount under the factory D-rings. I also need to put in something on the leading edge near the hatch threshold to elevate the boxes a bit so that the bottom of the drawer face doesn't drag along like it used to. I'll do some tinkering tonight and see where it gets me.



Now that i got rid of my exterior molle panels for fuel storage.. I am considering reworking my driver-side swing out that has the ladder to instead have a way to secure 2 metal jerry cans, hi-lift, shovel and possibly a way to carry a 5lb propane tank.. Should hopefully be quick and cheap enough to do..

 

[aemravan]

Upon closer inspection I’m glad I pulled the carpet.. found a bunch of rust spots starting to develop where the carpet would soak in water and stay wet.

Gave it the wire wheel treatment and hit it with a coat of Steel it. Used the old workout mats I have to cut to size for noise insulation and dampening in place of the carpet. We’ll see how it holds up.

The drawers are back in finally. Can I go camping now ?

Went to throw in the front skid as the last piece to the puzzle and had to pause a little. I don’t know if I’m crazy .. but is my drivers side axle not seated fully into the diff ? Is that even possible ? There was a little fluid seepage but it may be due to a compromised diff seal that I didn’t take the time to replace. I don’t mind a little exterior lubrication as long as I’m aware it is happening.

It has some slop in/out but that’s expected.. isn’t it ? The snap rig has some wiggle .. I think .. I don’t know. The passenger side one isn’t as far out so maybe I need to take some stuff apart and see if I can bang it in a little more ..

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