I know everyone has seen me posting but I finally got the lift put on and decided to do my build thread.
On June 1 I bought a 2000 Limited with 218k miles on it from the original owner:
Timing belt and water pump were done last year but it needed struts, tires (fronts were on belts), springs, and shocks. As I normally do when I buy a vehicle the first thing I do is change all of the fluids and give it a thorough tune up. Plugs and wires were original as I suspect the fuel filter was also given that the gas I poured out of it stained my concrete brown for a few weeks and I installed a B&M 70264 aux trans cooler.
Pics of the spark plugs:
Next thing I bought was a set of 265/75/16 Nitto Terra Grapplers and ordered the Bilstein 5100 front struts with Eibach springs along with the ToyTech Superflex rear springs and extended length Bilstein 5100 shocks and the front diff drop kit:
Finally. Time to drive it for the first time since bringing it home. I was half way to work on Monday when it overheated on me. I got to the office (barely) and popped the radiator cap open and the radiator was bone dry as was the reservoir and there was a bunch of this orange//brown crud in everything:
Awesome. So I go through the whole flushing process and get it cleaned up. 3 days later I'm running errands and I hear a drip sound and smell coolant. Turns out the orange//brown crud was stop leak that was plugging a broken heater core. YAY!! After letting the thing sit for 2 weeks out of pure anger I tore in to it over the last couple of days:
Also discovered the heater control valve was trashed so I replaced it:
Now rewind and remember where I said I bought a lift for this thing? That was 4 weeks ago. I know I suck. Yesterday after refilling and burping the radiator from the heater core fiasco I tore in to the truck and knocked the whole lift out:
Front Before
Rear Before
Blown front bushings
Oooo shiney
Front after
Rear after
Finished!!
This morning after breakfast my wife and mother in law went to run errands and I hopped in the 4runner for a spin. Picked up a rack of ribs for dinner tonight, dropped off the strut compressor, and then hit the construction lot behind my neighborhood to test the suspension:
Needless to say I'm pretty happy with this thing. I'll drive it for a week to get the suspension to settle in and retighten everything before I get an alignment. It needs gears in the most awful of ways and having a bad fuel pressure regulator isn't helping. So a set of 4.88's, a locker, extended rear brake lines, and a panhard drop bar are coming in the next few months. My brother in law has a new jeep that we've wheeled with and I go with his jeep friends a few times a year so I'm excited to bring the 4runner out and get to play with my own toy this time.
On June 1 I bought a 2000 Limited with 218k miles on it from the original owner:
Timing belt and water pump were done last year but it needed struts, tires (fronts were on belts), springs, and shocks. As I normally do when I buy a vehicle the first thing I do is change all of the fluids and give it a thorough tune up. Plugs and wires were original as I suspect the fuel filter was also given that the gas I poured out of it stained my concrete brown for a few weeks and I installed a B&M 70264 aux trans cooler.
Pics of the spark plugs:
Next thing I bought was a set of 265/75/16 Nitto Terra Grapplers and ordered the Bilstein 5100 front struts with Eibach springs along with the ToyTech Superflex rear springs and extended length Bilstein 5100 shocks and the front diff drop kit:
Finally. Time to drive it for the first time since bringing it home. I was half way to work on Monday when it overheated on me. I got to the office (barely) and popped the radiator cap open and the radiator was bone dry as was the reservoir and there was a bunch of this orange//brown crud in everything:
Awesome. So I go through the whole flushing process and get it cleaned up. 3 days later I'm running errands and I hear a drip sound and smell coolant. Turns out the orange//brown crud was stop leak that was plugging a broken heater core. YAY!! After letting the thing sit for 2 weeks out of pure anger I tore in to it over the last couple of days:
Also discovered the heater control valve was trashed so I replaced it:
Now rewind and remember where I said I bought a lift for this thing? That was 4 weeks ago. I know I suck. Yesterday after refilling and burping the radiator from the heater core fiasco I tore in to the truck and knocked the whole lift out:
This morning after breakfast my wife and mother in law went to run errands and I hopped in the 4runner for a spin. Picked up a rack of ribs for dinner tonight, dropped off the strut compressor, and then hit the construction lot behind my neighborhood to test the suspension:
Needless to say I'm pretty happy with this thing. I'll drive it for a week to get the suspension to settle in and retighten everything before I get an alignment. It needs gears in the most awful of ways and having a bad fuel pressure regulator isn't helping. So a set of 4.88's, a locker, extended rear brake lines, and a panhard drop bar are coming in the next few months. My brother in law has a new jeep that we've wheeled with and I go with his jeep friends a few times a year so I'm excited to bring the 4runner out and get to play with my own toy this time.
