aemravan's build thread - project TacoRunner

[aemravan]

Been a while since I've jumped on here, as with many threads on extensive builds I guess you get to a point where you really don't have much to upgrade (or just run out of funds to do so :guitar3: ? lol)



I have been wrenching on the Taco over the past month or two, primarily on some maintenance stuff, and odds and ends that I've wanted to do.

The last round included pulling apart the center console again to better seal up the the hole that remained of the FJ transfer case swap that is no longer in place. Took some thing gauge sheet metal from home depot and used rivets and a ton of seam sealer to close everything up. Still kicking myself for throwing out the ac duct tube that went under the ashtray to get air to the back seats, but made some flex duct stuff I had from my diesel heater that seems to work decently for the time being.



I also had weird clunking noise that seemingly came from the driver side relocated body mount, come to find out I installed the bushing assembly wrong and that is the reason the bolt kept getting loose.. the more I wrench on this the more I realize I truly don't know what the hell im doing sometimes lol :whipping2





This weekends adventures include a 3 part ordeal I've been meaning to tackle.. I was having some transfer case fluid seeping out from what seemed to be the housing that mates to the transmission.. and is meant to stay dry. I ordered the t-case input shaft seal to have on hand, and sure as well, as soon as I separated the t-case from the transmission I had damn near a half a bottle of fluid come out. I probably should replace the transmission seal on the tail end as well.. but nobody seems to have it in stock and I don't feel like waiting, plus dropping the case on these things is literally a 30 minute ordeal so I'm not sweating having to do it again it comes to it. Waiting for the RTV to cure now so I can throw this thing in later this afternoon and fill it up for a drive tomorrow. Hopefully no more seeping.



While the driveshaft is off I also want to separate and clean off the current grease and use more appropriate stuff (since apparently I've been using the wrong grease) to see if I can keep it sliding more freely on compression without feeling the thud every time I go to accelerate.



The other thing that I tackled was swapping out my rear Dobinsons springs for a lighter spring rate.. ever since I got rid of the RTT and big fridge the rear has been jacked up into the air with crazy rake, effectively getting rid of any caster I had. I wish an option was to lift the front to match, but with my recent goal of trying to make parts last a bit longer, the logical solution was to drop the rear. Went through 2 batteries on a 700ft-lb impact driver compressing the springs in and out, I had doing these big spring lol, but they are in and ride pretty damn good and sits a lot more level like I wanted.

While the springs were out I was able to fully compress the rear axle to check for clearance everywhere since occasionally on back-to-back hills I would hear something impacting, and I believe it was the corner of the passenger side upper link mount against the cross member above it. Shaved off the corner a bit to give it more clearance and will need to do some testing once it's road worthy again.



I have a 2 night beach camping trip coming up in 1.5 weeks so I want to make sure everything is buttoned up and in good shape, but overall it seems that the last round of modifications (back to stock) are holding up decent.



My rear axle is slid back quite a bit and the angle of the rear sway bar links to the mounts is out of whack by a bit, so at some point in the future I may cut them off and relocate the back a bit for proper factory geometry.

 

[aemravan]

Ran out and threw the transfer case back into the rig during lunch before the afternoon storms come through. I'll have to wait to fill it up since I didn't get to the RTV until around 9 p.m. last night and it calls for 24 hours.. doubt i'll have the patience to go all the way to 9 but I figured it's a bit soon now to test drive, definitely don't want any RTV-related leaks to deal with later, though I'll likely have to drop it again at some point and replace the transmission output shaft/extension housing shaft seal since nobody had it locally and I didn't want to drive the supra to work in the rain tomorrow.. I don't think it's bad, or at least it wasn't fully bad until I put the case it. I may have nicked it a bit going back in since I had a bit of transmission fluid in the housing before tightening everything up, or maybe I'm lucky and it was just a bit that spilled while the seal compressed :wacko: :loco: Oh and by the way, don't be like me.... don't run 85w-140 in the transfer because you misunderstood what ECGS said about running it in all their applications... it only applies to the front and rear diffs I've been running the same damn fluid in all 3 on my FJ t case.. luckily I've only done maybe 250miles on this fluid since going back to factory... on the bright side, it probably probably was too thick to really leak out of the seal :shrug: Just got some 75w-90 synthetic valvoline flex fill in a pouch to try out on this go around.

I'm also hoping I got my driveshaft together in the proper orientation since I took it apart and pumped all the old grease out and filled with the proper stuff.. my marks didn't stay as visible as I had hoped.. so any new vibration will surely be the result of that lol. Time will tell.

I also kept finding conflicting information on the amount of grease, hydro-locking the shaft with too much, etc... since I took everything bit of grease out of my shaft I doubt the typical 3-6 pumps is enough.. i've read about guys pumping 30-50 into theirs (way too much if you ask me lol) with no issues, while others being petrified about hydro-locking the during a compression and cracking the transfer case (also seems to be a bit excessive lol) so I went with maybe 10 pumps, squeezed a bit out through the zerk fitting hole, and extended it to the case and mounted it up. I guess i'll see if the stop/start thud is there and pump in a bit more grease as needed. My axle is pretty far back compared to stock so I feel pretty confident that an extra 3-6 pumps won't do any damage, and may actually be required. :hippie:


oh, and there's a good chance I may be back to looking at some heavy modifications for 37s/38 in the not-so-distant future... since my brother and his wife decided they're about to throw their '17 rubicon on some damn 40's or 42's on some tons.... yay... lol

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

37s should be interesting.
I read somewhere on greasing the drive shaft, that if you see it expand and slide out a tiny bit, that should be good.
Don't know how accurate that is though....

 

[aemravan]

37s should be interesting.
I read somewhere on greasing the drive shaft, that if you see it expand and slide out a tiny bit, that should be good.
Don't know how accurate that is though....

it's 50/50 on that process.. some say if you see it expand you're good, others say if you see it expand you're way past where you need to be in volume since that technically means it can't compress anymore from that point. I will say that trying to compress it by hand with some grease in it is damn near impossible once you hit the grease point. It's smooth sailing until you hit the packed grease, and then it feels like you're hitting a solid stop.

Anyhow, so far so good on the clunk from it as of this morning, but thats only 16 miles. I"ll see how it does throughout the week.



37's have always been an end goal of mine.. purely aesthetically purposed.. I've given up on the idea of doing hard core wheeling in this setup so the non-optimal travel from 37's won't be much of a detriment. But realistically speaking.. this is probably far, far away.. I won't have the time I'd need to invest to do everything, especially now that it's mostly decently running lol.

And then there's the 2024 Landcruiser that just got announced.... daddy likely! so I may not even have funds to keep dropping into this build for a long long while. Time will tell :smokin:

 

[Inv4drZm]

And then there's the 2024 Landcruiser that just got announced.... daddy likely! so I may not even have funds to keep dropping into this build for a long long while. Time will tell :smokin:

The LC and the new Lexus look so good. Mildly build and camp out of it, would be sick.

But also, the next gen 4Runner could be just as good and worth the wait.

 

[aemravan]

The LC and the new Lexus look so good. Mildly build and camp out of it, would be sick.

But also, the next gen 4Runner could be just as good and worth the wait.

yea the GX is damn good looking too.. just with the added lexus tax and luxury.. the LC would probably be a bit easier to justify going camping in at a bit of a price reduction.. maybe .. lol. I love the entire new lineup Toyota/Lexus is coming out with.. styling and all is right up my ally. The new Sequoia would be my go-to.. but I just can't imagine spending 70-100k on a toyota SUV (or any SUV really..) but if the new Tundra/Tacoma are any indication, the 6th gen 4runner (whenever they do finally decide to announce it) is likely to be a miniature version of the sequoia which would be absolutely stunning as well..

either way though.. this is just dreaming because the reality is that I can't imagine getting into a new car payment for the next 5 years or so... just really hard to transition to when you have a fully paid off, $7k rig that is more than capable of doing everything you need and is unique at the same time lol

 

[Inv4drZm]

yea the GX is damn good looking too.. just with the added lexus tax and luxury.. the LC would probably be a bit easier to justify going camping in at a bit of a price reduction.. maybe .. lol. I love the entire new lineup Toyota/Lexus is coming out with.. styling and all is right up my ally. The new Sequoia would be my go-to.. but I just can't imagine spending 70-100k on a toyota SUV (or any SUV really..) but if the new Tundra/Tacoma are any indication, the 6th gen 4runner (whenever they do finally decide to announce it) is likely to be a miniature version of the sequoia which would be absolutely stunning as well..

either way though.. this is just dreaming because the reality is that I can't imagine getting into a new car payment for the next 5 years or so... just really hard to transition to when you have a fully paid off, $7k rig that is more than capable of doing everything you need and is unique at the same time lol

That's where I'm at with the last paragraph. My truck can do everything and its already paid for, just needs some form of sway bar and a bigger muffler to increase interstate and daily drivability and lower the road noise. Would love to redesign and replace all the armor with lightweight alternatives at some point too.

With a new truck the only performance metric I'd really gain is power and fuel mileage.

 

[aemravan]

yup.. 100% with you.. a new rig is definitely a "want to have" 96% vs the remaining "must have" 4% lol. A new car payment would be super hard to justify as well over a salvage yard build that has been paid from the get-go... I mean hell, just the insurance increase alone would probably be a solid $1.5-2k a year difference. Maybe sometime in the next 5-10 years.. who knows..


On a slightly different topic... I have been tossing around the idea of what I would do with my build IF i were to end up keeping it long term.. Initial plans were to do a hefty rebuild as it nears 200k miles. Pull the motor for a full rebuild/refresh, seals, gaskets, possibly full teardown, etc. and maybe even boost :lookout:

Then it hit me... for the price I would pay to do anything toyota boost/rebuild related would be pretty steep.. now I know the thought of throwing an LS in place of a tried and true 2UZ-FE platform is bound to ruffle some feathers, but hey, I still get flak for having a Tacoma front end from some :reddance:

The cost of getting a 2uz-fe to 400-600hp vs doing the same with a junkyard LS is just absurd. Nothing is concrete, but I am starting to look into figuring out what I can do for a trans and transfer case and all, but the idea of stuffing a blown LS into the 4runner is pretty damn exciting. It would VERY likely be accompanied by a matching chevy 14bolt 1-ton set of axles..
Only complication is that I would need a small shop with a lift to do this work in.. Body off, SAS swap it, position motor, cut apart firewall/trans tunnel as needed, custom work some sheetmetal, body back on and send it

Something about the idea of having a 500-600hp T4R on 38's (40s??) is getting me excited lol :lookout:

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

Ummm........:hiding: LOL

 

[aemravan]

Ummm........:hiding: LOL

:lol: :lol: :lol: hey … it would be stock … just Chevy ? :lol: :lol: :lol:

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[aemravan]

Just found my rig on the exit off-road site advertising the dobinsons long travel rear shock, pretty sweet

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[Inv4drZm]

yup.. 100% with you.. a new rig is definitely a "want to have" 96% vs the remaining "must have" 4% lol. A new car payment would be super hard to justify as well over a salvage yard build that has been paid from the get-go... I mean hell, just the insurance increase alone would probably be a solid $1.5-2k a year difference. Maybe sometime in the next 5-10 years.. who knows..


On a slightly different topic... I have been tossing around the idea of what I would do with my build IF i were to end up keeping it long term.. Initial plans were to do a hefty rebuild as it nears 200k miles. Pull the motor for a full rebuild/refresh, seals, gaskets, possibly full teardown, etc. and maybe even boost :lookout:

Then it hit me... for the price I would pay to do anything toyota boost/rebuild related would be pretty steep.. now I know the thought of throwing an LS in place of a tried and true 2UZ-FE platform is bound to ruffle some feathers, but hey, I still get flak for having a Tacoma front end from some :reddance:

The cost of getting a 2uz-fe to 400-600hp vs doing the same with a junkyard LS is just absurd. Nothing is concrete, but I am starting to look into figuring out what I can do for a trans and transfer case and all, but the idea of stuffing a blown LS into the 4runner is pretty damn exciting. It would VERY likely be accompanied by a matching chevy 14bolt 1-ton set of axles..
Only complication is that I would need a small shop with a lift to do this work in.. Body off, SAS swap it, position motor, cut apart firewall/trans tunnel as needed, custom work some sheetmetal, body back on and send it

Something about the idea of having a 500-600hp T4R on 38's (40s??) is getting me excited lol :lookout:

Just got back from a camping/hiking trip to CO. Was dreaming on the way up of swapping in a lightweight LS based motor to keep up with all these modern turbo 4 and 6 cylinders. Depending on T-case and trans, could maybe reduce weight over the stock iron block setup? At least, not add much weight.

On the drive back, was thinking URD supercharger could pair well with my future 28 gallon fuel tank and possibly auxiliary fuel storage, to alleviate the high octane in remote areas issue. I don't think I filled up anywhere without 91 octane though.

 

[aemravan]

Just got back from a camping/hiking trip to CO. Was dreaming on the way up of swapping in a lightweight LS based motor to keep up with all these modern turbo 4 and 6 cylinders. Depending on T-case and trans, could maybe reduce weight over the stock iron block setup? At least, not add much weight.

On the drive back, was thinking URD supercharger could pair well with my future 28 gallon fuel tank and possibly auxiliary fuel storage, to alleviate the high octane in remote areas issue. I don't think I filled up anywhere without 91 octane though.

That’s actually a good point …. I was originally thinking a cast iron block to keep it boost friendly , but reality is that I don’t really need to boost it … if you can throw in an aluminum block ls with a cam, headers and some supporting bolt ons and tune you could probably make an easy 400-450 , if not 500 hp completely NA. You’re running 93 octane at that point I’m sure but if I did this it wouldn’t be a daily driven rig anyhow so wouldn’t hurt that bad. Weight savings could be a big deal I guess .. especially when you’re talking 40s and 1 ton axles front and rear lol. It would at least help offset some of the weight. But at the end of the day a couple hundred extra pounds probably wouldn’t hurt all that much. I would end up making up some of that with a hybrid front and rear bumper to save probably 300lbs over my current setup.

I have no clue about the ls platform or what i can source it out off.. initial thought was that I should probably find a gm 4x4 truck with the axles AND motor I could use since the transmission would then also hold up to the abuse, more than likely paired with an Atlas tcase.

Packaging space is likely to be an issue under the body, but I’m already fully set to delete /modify the center console area and fully cut out the tunnel to whatever spacing would be needed to stuff everything in and just custom fab a custom sheet metal cover as needed… we’re talking a 3-6 year start time best case .. so I have more time to dream and plan lol.

I do, however , think once I feel like I have a platform to start with figured out I may start keeping an eye out at the junkyards to pick the parts up much sooner before they start climbing up in cost. That way I can at least slowly start on building up the axles and rebuilding the motor so it’s all ready to go once I’m ready to pull the trigger. Worst case I would just sell them for not much loss, potentially even some minimal profit.

I’d also have to go with a rear mounted tank for sure since I want to do a triangulated 4 link in the rear and not have to do a reverse mounted version for the upper links. It will likely have to be a custom tank similar to yours, but potentially a bit larger (and also recessed a bit into the cab through the floor ) so I can have maybe 30 gallons of fuel onboard


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[aemravan]

Should have just custom fitted some Lexus IS seats instead … last time I’m tackling an upholstery project …

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[aemravan]

I don’t have an exact before to compare to, but I guess all in all it didn’t come out too terrible for $140 and 5 hours of work .. this will carry me over until I’m ready to do an all black interior conversion and throw in some gen3 is300 black leather seats and redo the rear seat leather. At least those don’t have any seat heaters to mess with lol.

It’s not as tight as I wish I could have gotten it in spots but with the sun beaming down it’s helping iron out the wrinkles and looks much better today than it did yesterday evening.

edit* I should mention, these cheap covers were from ebay, the quality is decent but certainly not OEM. One area of concern is the side airbag in the seat... the factory covers have a solid tether that attached via metal plate to the back of the seat to allow the cover to stay put as the air bag blows through the stitching. No such provision with these.. so who knows what'll happen if, god forbid, I'm ever in a serious enough of a wreck that would trigger those.. lol.


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[aemravan]

So last few day's I've been doing quite a bit of reading and research to see if there is an older Chevy/GM platform that would be a suitable donor for a potential LS/SAS swap down the road... obviously there are numerous LS V8 options that I could piece meal together.. but I figured it would be be significantly easier to have a running 4x4, LS v8 platform with the transmission and transfer case, as well as axles in an older truck I could just buy whole...

well... it seems that one does not exist.. I thought I had a winner with a 1999-2006 Chevy Silverado 2500HD, which came in a 4x4 configuration, had the 6.0L LQ4 v8 which could be fairly easily rebuilt to make 400-500hp all NA, has the 14bolt 1 ton rear axle that I'm after... BUT it hit me... those trucks are IFS.. :facepalm:

After further searching it looks like the GM Dana 44 and Dana 60 are obviously a factory option that could be sourced, but only in the older platforms. Still not a deal breaker... but having to figure out yokes/driveshaft mating, etc is something I was hoping to not have to do, not to mention also having to worry about whether it's a passenger or drivers side drop, etc. All these things are fairly easy to overcome but just not an "easy" take out of this rig and custom fab to work with this rig option lol.


I've found quite a few 2500HD 4x4 options in the 5-8k range, which really isn't a terrible deal considering that will get me all I would need drivetrain wise minus the front axle. The remainder of the truck could probably parted for a half decent amount as well to offset some of the cost. So depending on the parts cost of the individual components at the local junkyards over the next year or two I may just be picking up a running truck to strip everything I need from.. or, if I can figure out what transmission options work with which LS motor I may go the individual route.. the initial concern was having a heavy duty transmission from a 1 ton truck vs trying to make something from like the corvette work obviously lol. The transfer case I guess I could go the "easy" route and keep the stock GM case, but I guess a custom built atlas case would also be an option as well. :spider:

 

[aemravan]

Well.. hard to believe but the RCV axles just sold today and are packed up and ready to ship tomorrow. Probably some of my finest packing to date [emoji1787]

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[aemravan]

Made it out on an end of summer beach camping 3nighter with my brother and one other buddy. Great time with some great weather.

The 4runner is back to pretty damn solid. Everything held up together on the 400+mile trip to Carolina beach. Surprised that I ended up doing 75-80mph on the way down and up and felt half decent and comfortable with it.

The rear end clunk is gone and looks like was intact the the upper passenger link hitting the cross member above it still, shaved it down and no more bottoming out.

Ground tent camping has its benefits but I do miss the readily available views of ocean to wake up to lol.

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[aemravan]

Well … time is officially flying. I feel like I just pulled this thing off and it’s time for it to go back on for a month .

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[aemravan]

And one last temporary mod [emoji13]

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