Cartzo's 87 4Runner Homemade Long-Travel Build

[Cartzo]

Due to school and life I haven't been able to work on the yota a whole lot these last couple of months. Now that finals are done and all I have to worry about is work, I hope to get a lot done on the truck.

First off, I bought me another 1st gen. A 1985 4runner basically stock other than 4" lift. The 22re has 164k miles and runs amazing. Unfortunately the tranny is going bad. Reverse is completely gone and it's pretty tough to get into other gears. The previous owner recently did a timing job. It came on 31" Maxxis Bighorn M/Ts with good tread and what looks like cheap 16" black steelies. I'm not sure if I've mentioned in this thread before, but we actually rolled this truck up Millville canyon my senior year of high school. We were going about 30mph around a corner and a bead folded or something because we were literally thrown into the air then slammed on the passenger side and rolled onto the roof. It crumpled almost every body panel and the roof pretty bad. Panels are replaceable, but the roof is just a bummer. The only way I can really see it going back to a clean look is chopping the top and welding one from a junkyard in. I'm not planning on having it for that long so I won't put that much work into it. I'm just going to replace the doors, fenders, hood, front bumper, and tranny then sell it so I have even more $$$ to dump into the LT build :thumb:

The 87 has been running and driving pretty well. Basically all the bolt holes on my exhaust were stripped so I drilled and tapped the ones I could. I coated the manifold gaskets in copper sealer, put the manifold on, and torqued it as much as I could. It sealed well at first and we took it up Providence to test the suspension on the bumps/jumps. I ended up hitting a section of whoops at the quarry that were a lot bigger than they looked. We bounced around pretty good and caught some air I'm sure. We bumped enough to smash my fenders, snap my brakelines, and bend the hell out of the IFS crossmember. I had to creep it back home in 4lo using the engine as a brake. I replaced the snapped lines and took it out this weekend and it has a huge exhaust leak again.... Still not sure what I'm going to do about it now.

In addition to the front crossmember being bent, I'm nervous that something more crucial is bent. From looking at these pictures it looks like my lower arms are sitting in completely different positions (driver side is more flat, passenger side is tilted forward). It doesn't seem like that would be caused just from the crossmember being bent, but maybe. I took measurements today to make new lower mounts anyways so when I take everything apart to weld them on I will hopefully be able to see if anything else is bent.

 

[snivilous]

FOR THE RECORD: Nothing we've designed or fabricated has broken. Stupid POS stock components :bigok:

 

[Cartzo]

Slowly but surely getting places on the 87. I have the 85 about ready to sell which I am very excited for. With that money I will buy my front end fiberglass and new 35" MTRs to get me by until I buy 17" beadlocks and tires. I swapped my 31" Big O A/T's and old painted Chevy rims with the 31" Maxxis Bighorn M/T's and cheap black steelies from the 85 and I have to say I'm really liking the look. 31s are just too small for me now.

I got my upper arm painted and I think it turned out alright. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on it because I know it will be getting banged up anyways.

I got a new front diff crossmember from a junkyard and put that in. To me it looks like it isn't straight. I think the place it bolts in on the passenger side is bent and twisted in a bit.

I welded some washers to the very outside of the lower mounts so my lower arms don't have any more wiggle room. They are nice and solid and ready to go. I decided against dropping the mounting point mostly just to keep it stock and it will be stronger anyway. Instead of doing that, I'm going to design and build new boxed lowers with a kink to compensate for the lower uniball positioning. That wont be for at least a year or so. I plan on running the hell out of this current setup.

The main thing holding the beast back is a tranny. I ended swapping my 87 tranny into the 85. The plan was to find a nice W56 or R151f but I'm not having any luck. If all else fails I will need [MENTION=92884]snivilous[/MENTION] to bring me one from Colorado when he comes back for school.

The other main thing is I want to redo my coilover mounts. The plan now is just go balls to the wall and tube the entire front end. It will basically be the start of my cage so I can tie into it when its time to do the interior cage. This way the entire front end will be structurally sound and I won't have to worry some much about bending and warping of the frame.

I ordered some 2.0 FOA bumpstops and clevis kits for my limit straps. I also ordered some stiffer shims for my coilovers to hopefully create a better starting point for fine tuning. After the limiters are mounted, CVs/hubs are back in, and coilovers are remounted/revalved/recharged the suspension will be ready for high speed tuning!!

So to give a little time perspective here's rough timeline of what I want done and when:

Next weekend (8/6-8/9):
Button up the 85
Get on KSL and sold by 8/21

Following weekend (8/13-8/16):
Take the 87 to my dads shop
Tube the front end
Mount bumps/straps
Try to straighten passenger side

 

[snivilous]

 

[snivilous]

 

[JBurt]

From the looks of it I take it your engine troubles are over?

 

[Cartzo]

From the looks of it I take it your engine troubles are over?

Just fired her up last night after all the rewiring for the intake swap. I was waiting to weld the whole cage till I knew it was running good .I'm gonna button her up tonight and take her for a spin

 

[snivilous]

The hood fitment isn't this bad, we realized the shock resis were sticking up too high so they were pushing the sides of the hood up a bit.

 

[Cartzo]

Hello friends! I've been lazy on the build updates so I apologize. I'm sure there is at least one person out there that wants to know how the first ride went.

It didn't go well.

To begin with, [MENTION=92884]snivilous[/MENTION] and I were having a hell of a time getting the 22re timed right. We set the TPS using 4crawler's guide. We were able to get the diagnostic jumper to drop the idle (would never drop the idle before) so finally it feels like the TPS is dead on. We were a tooth off on the distributor so we fixed that and gave it a whirl. We got the timing as close as possible. The idle was pretty rough so I adjusted the screw on the intake to get it around 800rpm. It was blowing an odd amount of water out the exhaust the entire time I was driving it. I didn't have access to a compression tester at the time, but I'm pretty positive there wasn't a head gasket problem. I'm not sure what else cause's condensation like that other than a little bit from gasoline and maybe an A/C if you have one?

The idle just wasn't consistent enough for me. I could tell it wasn't running perfect and the valve tick seemed a little bit too loud even considering I have no damping from fenders/engine bay anymore. Also, when I had the valve cover off, there was an odd amount of slack on the driver side of the timing chain...

Considering all this it was driving great. [MENTION=92884]snivilous[/MENTION] brought me a W56 from CO that works much better than my old tranny. I don't have to hold it in 1st gear anymore I put about 400 miles on it driving back and forth to work for a week. The clacky engine was embarrassing at stoplights, but the clackiness would go away when I revved up. Not sure if that's worth mentioning.
[MENTION=92884]snivilous[/MENTION] and I went up to Willard Peak on our first real wheeling trip together in over a year with both our rigs... Kinda sad when you put it that way. Anyway, the 1st gen did great on the way up. It was right after the first snow of the year so we got some nice pictures and headed back. This is when things went very wrong for my poor old 1st gen.

First off, about half way down on a very steep icy section, my front diff start to lock up. I'm not exactly sure if it was the diff, but something was locking up, kicking me out of traction, and pulling my steering towards the steep steep edge of the road any time I let out on the clutch and tried to pull forward. All my passengers wanted out at this point (except sniv) :bounce: I unlocked the hubs, took it out of 4 wheel, and straightened her out. We got out of the sketchy section and put it back in 4WD to see what was wrong and it worked like normal. Not sure what's up with that..

Since it was going fine we decided it would be alright on the trip through the canyon back to home. Right as we were about to pull onto the highway, my valve tick stopped and I lost my engine. My rpm stayed normal (gradually declined) as I coasted to a stop. I tried to crank it and all you can hear is the starter spinning. It won't actually turn the engine, but you can hear it power up. At that point I'd had it with 87 and it's been sitting ever since.

Since it has been cold and my parents are sick of my truck in their garages I haven't been able to work on it at all. At a minimum I'll have to do some cage work to be able to tear down the engine. I have access to a bender now so I'm kind of thinking I want to redo most the tube anyway to make it more maintenance friendly... My biggest problem now is a place to work on the thing because now I basically need a full shop to do the real work I need to.

So that's where I'm at. The 87 needs a real home or some warm weather before she'll get more quality Cartzo time. I'm back in school so I have a lot more energy and free time to do things. I still have the 85 and will be listing it for sale again pretty soon and hopefully sell it decently quick. I just sold my 81 Celica so bye bye to that old monster. I highly doubt that will be my last Celica so I'm not too sad I have my eye on a turbo 1st gen that I'm trying to find a way to buy. It would be perfect for me to daily through college then I could build it into a race spec 1G when I'm ready. Those are my thoughts and dreams at the moment. Thanks to anyone who still reads/follows/replies to this thread:thumb:

 

[snivilous]

Please petition and encourage [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] to fix his 1st gen so we can go to the Mint 400. It has been a long road from the first time I met (which was also the first time I wheeled with) Cartzo and his baby 1st gen blowing tires all the time. He is now a few hours of work away from raping whoops and jumps in perhaps the most unique IFS 1st gen. He needs support from the world and T4R though. Please convince him to trouble shoot the issues he had months ago so for the first time in over a year he can reliably drive and confidently beat the piss out of his beast. Something that has undergone this transformation and dedication deserves to be resurrected (again) and used for what it was built for, for the first time. He has 31 days to prep and ready and needs some encouragement!

 

[PlanetExpress]

Any chance you've gotten this thing up and running again... and are having so much fun, that you have neglected to update the thread??? Here's hoping :cheers:

 

[Chuckles89]

A month ago, Sniv said it wasn't fixed :nono:

 

[CruzadoBlanco]

its too bad to see this bad ass LT build not being able to be used. i know where the frustration is coming from. My 89, even though it spent 90% of its time here in Texas, it started up in Wisconsin and apparently was never maintained since every bolt has been seized up and snapped (plus the rust, i keep finding it in small places on the body and i hate it). Plus the last person to actually own it was some tard in highschool who half assed welded everything.

If this thing was closer id be doing anything i could to help get it up and going.

which reminds me i need to go update my build thread.

 

[junkyardbiker]

Truck this badass needs a 3RZ swap.......

 

[PlanetExpress]

Saw on instagram you are planning a 4.7 swap! Any updates? [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] [MENTION=92884]snivilous[/MENTION]

 

[Cartzo]

Good to know there's a couple people who still have some hope in me and the ol' 1st gen!

I'm still fumbling around trying to collect good tools so I can do some fabrication I can be proud of. I finally found my own garage space in town and have been renting for a year in August. I have had quite a few cars through the garage now, but I have a hard time dumping so much money into this build while I'm still struggling to live on my own. This thread will be getting revived soon though. I'm set up a little better now and plan to work on the 1st gen little by little when I have time between other work. I already cut the cage out a few weeks ago and have been debating engine swaps.
[MENTION=127896]PlanetExpress[/MENTION] I was planning on swapping the 2UZ, but after a little more consideration I decided it's too heavy for the application I'm going for. I think a 1UZ would fit me better, but if I stumble upon a deal on a built LS I won't hesitate. It's basically a waiting game with this build now because the mods I want to do are big bucks and I need to use that money to invest in other things right now.

I'm thinking about starting another thread so I can share the other yota's I've worked on and log any notable wheeling/camping trips. I have a sweet 2wd 86 Pickup as a daily that I'm doing some decent work to and I recently finished up a 3.0 HG on a 95 runner that I think I'm going to keep for a while also.

Updates will be coming soon and thanks to anyone who's still rooting for me and the 1st gen!

 

[Cartzo]

Well after almost exactly 2 years, the 87LT has a beating heart again!!! I really can't believe it took this long, but I wasn't about to buy a crate 22re for $1200-$1400 and everyone selling used wanted $600 for engines with blown heads or other problems. This is what was pushing me towards a swap because if I pieced everything together right I could probably do a swap for around $2k.

I had a complete 2002 Sequoia I picked up as a donor truck for $1100. Upon tearing it down I realized just how huge and heavy the 2UZ is. After some consideration I decided a 1UZ would fit my truck a lot better so I bagged that idea. While keeping the entire powertrain and other misc. parts I was able to make my money back quite easily. I actually made about $1000 on top of the $1100 and have a full 4.7 powertrain sitting in the garage now. I picked up a 2wd 3rd gen runner for $400 that had a blown 3rz. I'm highly debating throwing the 2uz and 8.4 rear axle in that and making a sweet 2WD LT V8 3rd gen build. Decisions, decisions....

A couple months ago I picked up another 87 4Runner with 171k miles for $500.. Yes, I got the entire truck for $500 versus paying twice that for just an engine. It sure pays to scout for good deals everyday! This 87 is beat up pretty good, but the powertrain is solid. I mean come on, it's a Toyota with less than 200k! I did about 70mph through the canyon all the way home and she handled it flawlessly. God I love these old trucks! At first, the plan was to part it out to fund the V8 swap on the 87LT. After a month or so it finally clicked in my head that I have the perfect donor truck to get my main rig going without dealing with the troubles of a full swap. I could have the 87LT going in a couple months versus a year or more so the tear down began!

I never really figured out the problem with the original engine so I was super nervous that I had wiring issues from chopping up my harness. I still had a lot of wires to clean up and pieces to mount after chopping out the previous cage. I ended up mounting everything I could to the firewall and finished up modding the harness. Looking back on it now, since I basically chopped and modded every wire in the engine harness I wish I would have just put the whole harness and fuse box in the cab. I had spent too much time on it already though so I said screw it. It's good enough for now. I just wanna drive the *****. I also had to JB weld a new line and fitting in my fuel pump bracket because mine broke. I couldn't find the exact fitting I needed so I just got the one that fit best from Orielly's and called it good. I hooked up the battery, gave her a whurl, and she sputtered to life! SUCCESS FINALLY!!!

So now that the hard part is done, I have begun the new shock hoops. I have limited access to steel in my area which has made the fab process very slow and limited. The only 1 3/4" DOM tube they offer is 3/16" wall so these should definitely take a beating. This time I've decided to slightly sacrifice my shock positioning to accommodate a more simplified cage. There is so much stuff in the way (intake, master cylinder, steering, etc) that makes it very challenging to fab a cage that looks completely symmetrical while still clearing every component and keeping your shocks in the correct position. I'm taking my time trying to keep everything consistent and it is starting to come together. The main tubes are about done then I will start on shock mounts, cross brace, and bump mounts. I'm also going to move the shock mounts on my lower arms in a little bit to clear my brake lines from the calipers as well as add gussets and bump pads the the upper arms. After that I just need to mount my power steering reservoir, radiator, hood, fenders, grill, and lights then she should should be ready for a test drive!

 

[Cartzo]

Time for an update! These next few posts are going to be a bunch of photo dumps just to show my progress. Hopefully this can serve as motivation to people with little to no fab experience and/or tools.

This cage turned out much better than my first try even though I'm still very limited with my tools/experience. It definitely isn't perfect, but I literally built it with a 4" grinder, my dad's welder, and a hammer. You can see my Dewalt chop saw in a few pictures, but I was only able to use that to cut my tubes roughly to length because something is internally wrong with the saw causing it to jump around and not cut straight at all. After the first couple cuts I realized it was quicker, easier, and safer to just cut everything with the 4" cut off wheels.

I hope this can serve as proof that you don't need big fancy tools like plasma cutters, tube benders/knotchers, etc. to build cool sh*t. With a $40 grinder, about 100 cutoff wheels, and a whole helluva lot of time, patience, and desire to build something for yourself, you'd be surprised by what you're actually capable of! Get in the garage and build something!

 

[Cartzo]

So. Much. Cutting. First picture isn't even 1/4 of the plates I cut... Gotta do what you gotta do! At least I was able to tune my Dad's welder with all the time I had to spend welding!

 

[Cartzo]

I decided to throw some gussets on my lower arms while I was moving the shock mounts. Also made bump pads for the uppers that double as gussets.

Fab Tip: Whenever you're building multiples of the same part (or slightly the same part), tacking them together makes it much faster and easier to make them more, or close to, identical