Diponyou's Daily Driver Budget Build

[diponyou]

So it has been quite the adventure with various yotas.
I started out with my 99 2wd that I loved :happy: I didn't need a 4x4 at the time so it served its purpose as a hauler around town.


After that I decided to move up to something a little more capable so I picked up these behemoth. It was quite the vehicle and was much more than I needed to be quite honest.


Next one came fairly recently and was an 86 4runner. My plan was to make it a daily but I learned that only having 2 doors was a real PITA, especially with my 3 year old.


So I saw this 97 limited pop up on craigs and made a the decision to throw the newly acquired 1st gen up for quick sale in order to buy the 97. Needless to say I am now the owner of this sweet thang :bounce:





The amazing thing is that I was able to pick this thing up for about $700 cheaper than I sold the 86 for, which is awesome.

She has a mere 276k miles on her and is in need of some maintenance items here and there. However for the most part she is pretty darn clean and has working a/c, 4x4 and rear diff lock :laugh:

The interior is pretty clean and overall it is just a pretty darn solid truck, especially for the price :humble:


Going to be doing the standard OME 883/891 combo with some choice of struts yet to be determined. Hoping some come up for sale locally for a good price. And some 33s.

Before that I will most likely get her up to date on all the maintenance stuffs.

The goal for her is just a daily driveable 4runner that I can take on some medium level trails. Nothing crazy :madgrin:

 

[diponyou]

So I believe I got the truck for pretty cheap because there was a CEL on, luckily I brought my scanner with me to check it out and the only code that popped up was p0305. The 5th cylinder was throwing an intermittent misfire, this allowed me to talk the price down A LOT!

Anyways, got her home and immediately swapped around the coils and plugs and it virtually stopped the issue but it was still there; however the CEL will not come back on because I can't get it to replicate the problem for any significant amount of time. I checked the resistance on the injector and it is within spec, but obviously it could be clogged or some other internal failure.

This morning I ran through and did the typical maf/tb cleaning, fuel treatment, k&n drop in, replaced a few vac lines and got some new NGK plugs.
Next round of stuff will be the typical preventative things, coolant flush with toyota red, B&M external trans cooler and trans service. diff fluids etc.

 

[diponyou]

Current picture of the truck.

 

[JeepKiller]

Could you post some pics of that push bar? I've never seen that before haha

 

[diponyou]

JAOS

Could you post some pics of that push bar? I've never seen that before haha

 

[nissanh]

Brush guard

Could you post some pics of that push bar? I've never seen that before haha

It is a brush guard and the top half is chopped off.

 

[diponyou]

Seems to be uncut, and from what I found that is how it came.
I could definitely be wrong though haha

It is a brush guard and the top half is chopped off.

 

[DW4RUNR]

Looks good! I want your leather seats! Mine have too many holes

 

[JeepKiller]

reserved again

JAOS

Dang haha it's that expensive stuff, I couldn't tell from the side angle. I've never seen one like that on a 4Runner, it could have been a butchered brush guard that was just done extremely well

 

[diponyou]

Well it pays to be a hoarder of car parts

Had a full jug of toyota red coolant laying around so I did a coolant flush, the stuff that came out was an...uhhhh... interesting culmination of colors.

And yes I filled her up with 1 gallon of coolant and 1.3 of distilled water olice:

I then remembered that I had ordered some LEDs for my last 4runner that I never got around to using, I lucked out and they worked for my dash :bounce:

I now need to order the rest

 

[diponyou]

Ahh, yes I can't forget.

I ordered a B&M 70264 trans cooler so I can avoid the pink milkshake.

I have been really looking into a lift. Pretty set on bilstein 5100s, and ome 883/891

Chances are my impatience is stronger than the possibility of a deal popping up on craigslist. :zoom:

 

[diponyou]

So a few things to document

-Got the B&M trans cooler installed on 7/1/2015

-New NGK plugs on 7/10/2015

Collected all the parts for the lift slowly but surely in order to save money as I was trying to go for the whole budget thing...:hippie:

However after collecting about half of the parts used I decided to buy the front lift stuff new from toytec, as well as the diff drop, panhard drop, and rear LC shocks.




Here is everything installed. I NEED to figure out something for the front bumper. I have no front bumper at all so it does not ride the greatest.
And I am not sure that's why the front is sitting so high.




I am thinking about doing a body lift here soon so I can go to 35s. It seems that 35x12.5r16 are much more common than 33s. I cannot find any decent used setups. Might try and switch to 17s as well, I missed my chance at picking up some sequoia 17s the other day

Anyways that is all to report at the moment I will keep documenting as things progress.

 

[BrandonF]

Looks good. What perch did you set the bilstein 5100's to? Make sure that your hub to fender measurement is no more than 23" (~3" of lift). Otherwise you will have a ton of problems with your front end. This could also explain the poor ride quality. I've found 22.5" hub to fender to be the sweet spot for the bilstein 5100's. Any more than that and you will have next to no down-travel, meaning that your tires will not be able to drop into depressions in the road properly.

I have a plate bumper, winch and skid plates. I have my tundra bilstein 5100's set at the middle perch (3/5) and its giving me the aforementioned 22.5" hub to fender height and rides well on and off road. With no front end weight, I'd recommend the 2nd perch.

 

[diponyou]

Good call, Brandon

I went and measured and I am at 24" up front

I am not sure what I want to do at this point, I am on the second setting on the 5100s at the moment and do not want to go down to the first and end up being too low up front with the bumper installed.

I am going to let it settle for a little and add some weight up front before I take it apart again. I do not feel like going back out there to take it apart it's pretty hot here in AZ and not fun doing manual labor outside haha.

 

[4-Ripcord]

Nice new rig. You could sell that Jaos push bar for so much money to some of the JDM weirdos on this site.

 

[diponyou]

Nice new rig. You could sell that Jaos push bar for so much money to some of the JDM weirdos on this site.

you don't say?

 

[diponyou]

Got it aligned today....jeez was that fun driving this thing unaligned

The guy said he had a hard time getting it aligned due to the lift. They spent 2 1/2 hours trying to align it :noidea:

Either way it seems MUCH better now.


However now I am running into the issue of spitting grease everywhere due to the cv boots. I will look into it later this weekend. I am tired.

 

[nc-grayson]

Got it aligned today....jeez was that fun driving this thing unaligned

The guy said he had a hard time getting it aligned due to the lift. They spent 2 1/2 hours trying to align it :noidea:

Either way it seems MUCH better now.


However now I am running into the issue of spitting grease everywhere due to the cv boots. I will look into it later this weekend. I am tired.

Is the front still at 24" ? Possibly have the retaining clip/perch upside down. It's happened a few times around here recently

 

[diponyou]

Is the front still at 24" ? Possibly have the retaining clip/perch upside down. It's happened a few times around here recently

Yeah they are still at 24"

Spring perches are in correctly.

I noticed that my boots are not torn at all, grease just seems to be coming out of where the boots slide over the axle and housing. Weird. But I am sure it has happened to someone else.

Also running into vibration issues on the highway...:Cry:

I double checked all the nuts on the spacers and re-torqued everything. Tires are older BFG a/t that I picked up from absalom. Got them balanced and everything checked out ok with em from the llantera.

Not really sure what else it could be at this point. I am going to rotate the tires to see if that does anything different. Im betting it will.

 

[98WhiteT4R]

Yeah they are still at 24"

Spring perches are in correctly.

I noticed that my boots are not torn at all, grease just seems to be coming out of where the boots slide over the axle and housing. Weird. But I am sure it has happened to someone else.

Also running into vibration issues on the highway...:Cry:

I double checked all the nuts on the spacers and re-torqued everything. Tires are older BFG a/t that I picked up from absalom. Got them balanced and everything checked out ok with em from the llantera.

Not really sure what else it could be at this point. I am going to rotate the tires to see if that does anything different. Im betting it will.

Vibration could be from LBJ/tie rods/rack bushings, just a perk of being old and lifted:whoo: