BlackAck's 5th Gen 4Runner thread

[97BlackAckCL]

Took a couple shots of the reverse lights at night, holy heck are they bright! They definitely help light up what's behind you and help the backup camera really see at night

Up close

My fav shot, you can really see how they light up the road!

 

[cmoekim]

I wrapped tied up the modules and wrapped them in some piping insulation to keep them from rattling around.

Just FYI.. Those load resistors get extremely hot when in use. They are encased in relatively large heatsinks for a reason. In your pic, it looks like you might have them wrapped up together with the rest of the harness, which is probably fine for low duration turn signal use, but I'd personally be wary of using the hazards for any length of time if that's the case. I ended up mounting mine out of sight, to the sheet metal with 3M attachment tape, in hope of further facilitating heat dispersion, and I'm still somewhat apprehensive about leaving them on.

Also, instead of using the T-taps, I just cut the wire and spliced in a female connector. I leave my Aux reverse lights disconnected most of the time as I think they might be a bit too bright for around town, and I wasn't confident those T-taps would hold up to repeated handling.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Just FYI.. Those load resistors get extremely hot when in use. They are encased in relatively large heatsinks for a reason. In your pic, it looks like you might have them wrapped up together with the rest of the harness, which is probably fine for low duration turn signal use, but I'd personally be wary of using the hazards for any length of time if that's the case. I ended up mounting mine out of sight, to the sheet metal with 3M attachment tape, in hope of further facilitating heat dispersion, and I'm still somewhat apprehensive about leaving them on.

Also, instead of using the T-taps, I just cut the wire and spliced in a female connector. I leave my Aux reverse lights disconnected most of the time as I think they might be a bit too bright for around town, and I wasn't confident those T-taps would hold up to repeated handling.

I did end up removing the insulation and updating the post.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Just a small little mod, I installed my Tufskinz foam inserts into the center console. I went with black with the gray insert to match the black and gray dash. Quick and easy mod but it adds a nice contrast and will help protect the stock plastic which had started to get scratched up a bit. Before, as I was cleaning up the cupholders

And here's the insert kit before install

Installed the cupholders first

And installed, I had originally thought about doing blue but thought it might look tacky, I'm really liking the accent look with the gray and black. Matches the dash nicely

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Just broke 10K miles on the truck yesterday. Had to take a pic at all 9's and then on to 10K

Almost 11 months to the day since I bought it. The shorter work commute has definitely lessened my mileage a lot. Today we celebrated at the dealership for her 10K month service, free oil change and had them do the state inspection while it was there. Passed with flying colors, even my tail as turn, double reverse lights and smoked amber corners passed. Yay :gheywave:

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Got started on my project, had to come in and cool down for a while. First step was to modify the speaker box which I've done before. This is a stock JBL enclosure, and I'm modifying it to fit the JL 8w3

Had to cut out the fins for the larger magnet

Also had to mod the stock wire grommet to keep the seal and let the larger wires in

All drilled out with the new Monster wires, these wires are the same that I had in my last truck

Got the speaker sitting flush

And screwed that ***** down!

The old amp with all new accessories

All JL

And now for the fun part, a little before

And this is hopefully where the speaker will go

But first to get all this crap out

More to come

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Made some good progress today, I removed all the trim and pieces to get the main panel out, which involved removing both passenger rear seat belts and the third row passenger seat.

Removing the third row seat, 4 bolts total. Not too bad, just a bit awkward

Third row seat removed

And all removed and ready for the subwoofer enclosure. The 4 stock holes are tapped and were ready for me to put bolts in

And installed, the sun was setting and glaring right in the windows so this was the best shot I could get, but there will be plenty more

I lost about 5 lbs of sweat doing this work so I have plenty more to do tomorrow but I'm about half way there. Another fun step will be hacking up the stock panel and removing this pocket which is riveted / plastic welded to the main panel

*

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Made some good progress before the sun got directly overhead and I had to come in and take a break, spent a couple hours ripping out the dash and getting the LOC installed on the back of the radio

Here's the LOC all installed, I had to trim a piece inside the radio plug to get it to sit flush, it was a ***** without taking the radio out but I got it done.

Here's the radio all reinstalled with the RCA's and trigger wire run down the center console (not wire tied yet) I also tested radio functionality and everything is working as it should

After I started putting the dash back together I decided to spend WAY too much time making this bass gain knob fit this switch blank.

I routed the USB plug that was in the dash piece to back behind and routed my USB cable and my iPod into the glovebox so it is stealth and unseen and can be locked up. I also had to modify the dash piece and widen it to accommodate the bigger box for the bass knob, as you can see it did not want to fit

It got too hot to keep working in the driveway since my garage is still unusable for car maintenance so I moved into the garage and removed the pocket where the sub will go.

All removed

All I did was grind down the plastic welds with a dremel and then pry up each pin one at a time and it came right off.

And finally the bass knob box fit inside the switch panel, success!

The switch blank got hacked down to almost nothing and got pretty scratched up from the drill as well as the plyers when I was test fitting the washer, so I threw a couple quick coats of satin black on it while it was out of the car

And here's a better lighting pic of the sub enclosure. I have all the wires run except for the power wire and that will have to wait until the sun moves off the driveway and I have a bit more shade. Good progress though for sure!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Made lots of progress again today, had to snap a pic of the third row seat chillin with the Ack, GF wasn't home so when I removed it I put it on the dolly and wheeled it out of the sun

I spent way longer running the power wire yesterday because I because I decided to sleeve it and make it more stealthy. This is the same power wire from my 08

And I tied up everything in the engine bay to hide the wire and make it neat

I like to be able to see my fuse holder at all times even though I've never blown a fuse

I fished the power wire through the passenger side firewall

And fished it under the carpet and under the passenger seat

I located the ground point in the passenger side pillar and ran my ground wire down from there

And fished it under the passenger seat as well.

I also fished the speaker wires under the carpet to keep everything stealthy

I got everything tested and it works great, so I went ahead and shortened all the wires and tucked the amp under the seat to make sure everything clears

Can't even see it which is what I was hoping for

Also I reinstalled this yesterday but didn't post any good pics, here's the bass knob installed and finished, looks like it belongs there. I'm so not used to it being easy to reach

The heat was brutal today and we were meeting with family from out of town so I quit after I got all the wiring tucked and complete. Tomorrow it will be hook the power up and put everything back together. Can't wait!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Got the truck all back together on Monday before the Stone Sour concert, didn't get a chance to post pics, here's a few pics of the finished product with the pocket removed. Still searching for the stock JBL trim panel, if I can't find one by spring then I will be fabricating some kind of trim panel, but for now I'm just happy to have everything installed and working correctly. Here's a few pics of how it fits in the stock panel after I removed the pocket to fit everything.

After I put the third row seat in and mounted the brackets for the Molle storage panel. I added the JL speaker cover as a bit of a finishing touch but also to help protect the dust cap from things sliding around until I can get a better more permanent trim piece

And here's the speaker with the Husky rear liner, it actually covers up most of the stuff I didn't want exposed which is nice

And here's the rear all reassembled and put back together.

And a wider shot of the rear

And here's a pic of the amp all plugged in and screwed down under the passenger seat. With the seat back it's not visible at all and is completely stealth which was the goal. I actually turned the bass boost back down to zero because it was "too loud" lol. Thing still slams and sounds amazing!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

And lastly, here's the other Rago Fab Molle storage panel with paper towel dispenser all installed finally.

With paper towels, I actually had to raise the holder up because it was blocking the wheel well pockets and wouldn't turn properly with a full roll, but I like it

All bolted up and sexy

And the wide shot of the trunk, looks so much better with a matching set

 

[crazi160]

Looking good! I need to get around to doing the amber lights on the front grille.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Hard to believe that it's been a year since I purchased my 2017 4Runner off the lot

What a difference a year can make

One year later

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Celebrated the 1 year anniversary with a couple small updates, gf has been sick so I couldn't do any major installs, but did a couple small things. The glovebox has been bugging me, the napkins and just general disorder, especially since I just moved the iPod to the glovebox as well. Here's a little before

Since I would be pulling everything out I figured I would throw in my cabin air filter that I've had sitting around for a while.

This was the original factory cabin filter, it honestly wasn't even that bad but figured since I had the replacement I would yank it out.

And it did have a fair amount of dirt, and a couple leaves, but wasn't that terrible.

A little side by side of the new carbon filter

New filter installed

I also bought this little organizer on Amazon, not bad for 15 bucks and exactly what I needed.

All installed and organized, the owner's manual and my registration pocket fit perfect. A little spot for napkins and my iPod as well. I also shortened the iPod wire and shoved it back behind the dash. I like it, nice and orderly. Once I use up the napkins I'll probably get some kind of tissue box or more organized solution, but it works for now.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Busy day yesterday, I took my bumper off to try and install LED turn signals and corners, the space is so tight you're supposed to go through the wheel well, but I figured removing the bumper would be easier. I ended up having to remove the headlight housings just to get to the bulbs, but the corner swap was a snap. Here's the stock bulbs

And here's a test shot of the new SMD LED amber bulbs for the corners.

I ran into an issue with the premade harness that I bought for the turn signals that had resistors built in, the bulb end of the harness would not fit into the Toyota headlight sockets. Stock on the right, premade harness on left.

The tabs don't line up at all with the stock ones, so I'm going to have to Macgyver something together.

It was time to update the amber LED lenses to something sleeker and more stealthy, so once I got the bumper back on, it was time to remove the ziptied amber lenses. (old pic didn't take a before)

I hacked off the old 6 LED amber lenses, and added quick connects so that I can disconnect and remove the bumper in the future if/when the need arrises. This was the test to make sure all the wiring worked before putting the bumper back on

Bumper reinstalled and amber LED's removed

New 3D printed black light mounts with smoked amber SMD LED lights, not wired up yet.

And here they are wired up

Then I heatshrinked all of the connections to make the wiring as water tight as I could. I reused the harness from the old amber LED's and wired to them so I wanted them to be as clean as I could

Then I tied up everything as out of the way as I could.

And here's the finished product, I did a side by side with the side amber corners.

And here's everything all lit up, they defintely look awesome at night, I will have to grab a pic later

And here's the new LED corners behind the tinted amber corners

 

[97BlackAckCL]

A couple night shots of the new amber LED's, they're a lot brighter than I expected

 

[97BlackAckCL]

And here's a nice subtle $5 mod that I threw on, it helps with the black on blue theme and looks cool. A member posted these in the what did you do today thread. Doesn't serve much other purpose other than rust protection and appearance, but for 5 bucks wth

 

[97BlackAckCL]

So I ended up selling and removing my tail as turn modules, I wasn't a big fan of the red brake lights acting as turn signals, and never really used the ridiculously bright double reverse lights, other than to blind a couple people in the parking lot. With the way people drive around here I figured bright as **** amber turn signals was the only way to go, plus when you locked or unlocked the truck the amber fronts and mirrors would blink with the red LED panels in the back and just didn't look right. So, my solution was to get the brightest amber LED turn signal bulbs I could find. These have resistors built in so that you don't need add on resistors to avoid hyperblinking so it was a win-win. I mostly drive in rush hour traffic, so I wanted my turn signals to be obvious, and 2400 lumens each is pretty obvious I'd say. I took a little side by side with the stock bulbs

They are super bright, I just put them in so will have to wait for a night shot, but here they are during the day

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Washed the truck up and took some better shots, loving the ongoing transformation that this truck has continued on through, love this front end so much

Black emblems with smoked black third brake light

 

[Edelbrock231]

Looking good! Where did those turn bulbs come from and how much??