aemravan's build thread - project TacoRunner

[phatcheeks]

The factory axles and oem boot kits have both delivered, look to be in decent shape but obviously I won't know until I get them swapped over. Going to see about rebooting (and doing the slight boot extension modification) on these things this week and going to see about possibly throwing them in before our beach trip to Daytona at end of month.

I also ended up ordering a slightly beefier version of the factory OEM rear sway bar (talk about wasted money here! :der so I can get the TK1 racing sway bar removed and factory one with new links back in place. Hopefully I can at least get a couple of hundred bucks for this TK1 racking bar.. I'm in it for close to $500 I think.. going to be fun cutting out the tube I welded into the frame

Which brand sway bar you go with?

 

[aemravan]

Which brand sway bar you go with?

ADCO I believe? Supposedly a little beefier than stock.. but I guess we'll see when it delivers later today.

I spent some time yesterday to pull the TK1 racing bar out so I'm ready to throw the new one in as soon as it delivers. Never thought I'd be excited to go back to a stock setup. lol

 

[phatcheeks]

ADCO I believe? Supposedly a little beefier than stock.. but I guess we'll see when it delivers later today.

I spent some time yesterday to pull the TK1 racing bar out so I'm ready to throw the new one in as soon as it delivers. Never thought I'd be excited to go back to a stock setup. lol

Nice. Yeah I believe Addco and SuperPro make thicker rear bars for our 4runners. I have also been looking into a thicker rear bar. Just waiting on a good time to buy one.

I have also slowly been going back to stockish or what I would call OEM+. Sold my front bumper, got smaller tires, removed my snorkel, lowered the lift a bit. Now I will be removing my mechanical locker since it makes daily driving a little weird.

 

[awhitney1]

Sorry to see you letting go of the TK1 sway bar, mine has been doing great since I went off your recomendation! I can't swap in a stock sway bar due to my dana60 rear axle

ADCO I believe? Supposedly a little beefier than stock.. but I guess we'll see when it delivers later today.

I spent some time yesterday to pull the TK1 racing bar out so I'm ready to throw the new one in as soon as it delivers. Never thought I'd be excited to go back to a stock setup. lol

 

[aemravan]

Sorry to see you letting go of the TK1 sway bar, mine has been doing great since I went off your recomendation! I can't swap in a stock sway bar due to my dana60 rear axle

it's a great bar, and I think running a non-stock axle would be much better. With the stock width axles the clearance between frame and inside of tire was REALLY tight for me and I ended up having to run quite a large spacer to keep it from contacting my air down tire. If I had more space out to the tire I think I could make it work a lot.. but with the way my setup ended up I was bashing the heim joint against the frame with some lateral movement.

 

[aemravan]

Milkshake anyone ?

On my way to pull the RCVs.. my factory axles delivered, need a little love but seem to be decent for age and miles. Trying to get all the old grease and crud out and off of these before rebooting. Considering doing the boot extension mod but not settled on the fact yet .. we’ll see.

I always love covering everything in axle grease

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[aemravan]

the CV boot job got messy quick.. had to call it quick and run over to Harbor Freight and pick up a few cans of degreaser, a wash tub, a bunch of shop towels, etc. Made it for a much quicker and cleaner clean-up.



Everything is apart and drying right now.. I even went as far as knocking down some of the surface rust while I was at it.. thought about throwing some paint on them, but then decided that was doing too much.. I don't even know if these things are good yet lol.





One thing I'm contemplating is doing the boot stretch mod since I am fairly lifted.. I've seen a couple of different ways to do it and haven't decided which I'm after yet.. Timmy the toolman used a part of the old boot and the snap ring from the tripod to hold it in place on the grooves (this seems a bit much... but who knows..).. others literally just stretch it past the groove and use a worm clamp to hold it there (this seems like it could very easily move..)





My Ironman 4x4 extended rear links are out for delivery so Im hoping to throw in the ADCO rear sway bar in today and see how it all comes together. Considering throwing the CV axles in this weekend so I can list the RCV's for sale (or just put them away for future use if I ever get serious rock crawling itch in the future lol). While the CV's are out, I want to take a look and address the clunk in the front end that I suspect is coming from my lc200 steering rackshaft banging against the modified motor mount... clearance on it was REALLY tight even stationary and I had to shave the outside of the U-joint to keep it from contacting my support... I think when I make a right hand turn under braking, the body shift enough (and the shaft with it) to make contact and bounce on the motor mount... it's really annoying..



I was thinking about this last night and i THINK what I can do is install some spacers under the steering wheel column bolts inside of the cab which should theoretically drop the steering shaft with it and maybe provided some separating (at least vertical separation).. Nothing can be done about lateral clearance obviously... at least not without modifying the clamp on the rack side to extended the U-joint out further... Oh the things I get myself into.. a VERY big part of me wishes I took more time to research and NOT upgrade to the LC200 rack... I should have just kept my very low mile rack and replaced outer tie rods on the trails as needed lol. I have VERY heavily considering pulling the lc200 rack out (along with my heavily modified spindles), selling the kit and going back to a refreshed factory rack setup.. :whipping2

 

[aemravan]

Settle down the cut off and c clipped boot extension .. hopefully this works as intended.. time will tell.

These things came out like new, almost. All wrapped up and good to go !

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[Inv4drZm]

Its a nice feeling when you finally get all the old crud out of them and new grease back in and they are ready to go.

 

[aemravan]

Out with another, almost new, and in with the new new. The adco bar and extended rear sway links are in.

Wasn’t exactly sure what the factory geometry was supposed to look like but I settled on almost parallel to the ground, it’s basically in line with the lower rear links. Can definitely feel the difference (as expected) on the street vs the TK1 bar, but we’ll see what sort of articulation limitation I end up with

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[aemravan]

Doing some further reconfiguring on the camping setup.. decided to sell my slide tilt fridge setup in favor of a bit smaller fridge, but a slide drawer design that fits right in my existing cabinet .. no more having a bulky fridge up top that is inaccessible once the rig is packed out.

This should also give me much more usable space when I’m not camping. I just need to repack all the supplies that were in that drawer, but it wasn’t all that much.. I’m considering doing the pack out set that locks to a bottom mount plate, but for the time being I think I’m just going to go the plastic bin route. Eventually the plan is to sell the hardshell RTT and stick a Thule carrier on the rack to house most of the camping gear. Initial test fitting is looking promising.

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[aemravan]

Working on some drawer ventilation for the new fridge.

Now just need to clean up the wiring and secure the fridge into the opening.

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[aemravan]

So I figured this would be worth sharing since I’ve been chasing this for what seems to be forever …
For the longest time I had a weird clunk coming out of the front end that I just couldn’t pin point..

It would show itself bad in a right hand turn under braking. I could also feel something weird in the floor board while braking and accelerating from a stop ..

My two thoughts were my modified steering shaft hitting the motor mount since the clearance was very little. And maybe the jba ball joint starting to go ..

Nope … finally tracked my issue down to a loose body mount that I relocated under the driver and passenger side … lol. Just needed to get cranked down on a bit. So far everything seems to be back to 100% clunk free.

Super excited. It’s the little victories.. lol


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[thegame7]

So I figured this would be worth sharing since I’ve been chasing this for what seems to be forever …
For the longest time I had a weird clunk coming out of the front end that I just couldn’t pin point..

It would show itself bad in a right hand turn under braking. I could also feel something weird in the floor board while braking and accelerating from a stop ..

My two thoughts were my modified steering shaft hitting the motor mount since the clearance was very little. And maybe the jba ball joint starting to go ..

Nope … finally tracked my issue down to a loose body mount that I relocated under the driver and passenger side … lol. Just needed to get cranked down on a bit. So far everything seems to be back to 100% clunk free.

Super excited. It’s the little victories.. lol


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Stuff like this usually comes down to something you've touched. I had a clunk on mine for the longest time and couldn't figure it out. Turns out it was the lower ball joint bolts being loose because I had pulled the CV axles out to reboot and didn't torque everything down after ound:

 

[aemravan]

Stuff like this usually comes down to something you've touched. I had a clunk on mine for the longest time and couldn't figure it out. Turns out it was the lower ball joint bolts being loose because I had pulled the CV axles out to reboot and didn't torque everything down after ound:

100% agreed. The problem for me is that I have literally touched something on the rig... and to a very large extent lol. So it makes it a bit hard to back track through. Luckily the last few things ended up being something very easy and stupid.

I did also have an issue with the passenger side lower ball joint bracket bolts coming loose for the same reason... kept getting a clunk and backing up and hitting the brakes and could not for the life of me tell where it was from... then just happened to see the fact that both bolts were not only loose, but starting to back out... yikes.. lol :laugh: lesson learned for sure.

 

[aemravan]

Did a little 4runner repurposing today. RTT is off and the Thule box is test fitted along with an Apache box from harbinger fright I snagged on sale for $130 is on as well. It is amazing how much stuff this moved from inside the rig and onto the rack.

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[aemravan]

Out with the new, in with the old

RCV is no more.

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[aemravan]

anybody in need of half-off RCV's or know anyone that may be??

I'll ship these anywhere to the lower 48 for $1100 (https://www.toyota-4runner.org/for-sale-t4r-items/310861-4th-gen-4runner-rcv-axles-$1100-charlotte-nc.html)

 

[aemravan]

haven't been able to do much with the rig (not that there's a ton to do at this point ) lately but the factory CV axles I picked up and swapped for the RCV's are holding up great so far, no noise, no leaks, no weird vibrations, all things I was experiencing with the RCV's.

Have not had any luck selling the RCV's, even at $900 ound: so I guess I'm one of the few 4th gen guys that isn't doing KOH that was splurging on non-napa axles to throw into the rig lol. I may hold onto them long term in case I finally make time to tub the firewall and run 37's.. but that's starting to be less and less of an appealing idea.. I have recently started thinking about an LC80 platform import out of Japan like one of my coworkers just did.. under 20k, turbo diesel, solid axle front from the factory, full float rear axle.. sounds more and more appealing here lol.


But on a more serious note, yesterday I finally fixed a noise that has been driving me absolutely insane for the past 6 months or so.. I initially narrowed it down to the drivers side body mount bolt coming loose, but didn't initially give it any thought as to why it happened. I've tightened the bolt twice since then, and kept hearing and feeling a noise every time I would start or stop as the body flexed.. well, it finally hit me.. I neglected to put the large solid washer on top and bottom of the relocation kit bushing which allowed the metal sleeve insert/pin in the center of it to slowly push it's way up into my body mount plastic spacer, which obviously would give way slightly, allowing this pin to ride up and down against the body mount, causing the noise I was feeling and allowing the bolt to come loose over time as the gap between the top of the mount and bottom of the body would decrease slowly. :bump2:

With this recent fix I can confirm that quite literally 90% of the issues I have faced with my rig were 100% self induced... which kind of reassures my new build mentality of keeping things OEM+ .. as in modify the absolute bare minimum for what you need the rig to do.. (or maybe I just suck at building stuff lmao)

 

[rdruss]

It's hard to compete with the Japanese engineers! They really seem to understand what they are doing and their build of our 4Runners is the proof. Mine is an '03 as well and it amazes me how sturdy this thing still is. My trans cooler piping is starting to leak though, but 20 years on it in the rust belt is pretty good! I've changed out two of the hoses and the piping behind/under the radiator and their hose was still soft and pliable, the clamps had rotted away though.