Gave in and joined :)

[mikebontoft]

Well, actually I gave in and joined yotatech. Then I hit the new posts button and found ONE thread in there. 24 members online. wow.

I'm used to a site with almost 3k members on daily. So here I am, you guys look busy :banana:


Nothing special here, just a more-than-common second gen (94) 3.0 v6 manual.

Got it from work, the woman kept blowing up engines so she finally got tired of it and dumped it off. Finally a vehicle where I'm the second owner. As you'd imagine, yeah it had a bad engine. I think I'll leave the details to my build thread when I find the time to make one. Finally started to really make it my own this weekend though. I've only had it about 3 months.

As I found it:

still the best engine shot I have after replacing the old one:

after its first wash under my ownership:

And after this weekend:

Just ordered some replacement springs for the rear... contemplating on a 2" body lift and dropping the sidesteps off of it.

Plans eventually are to build myself a nice plate bumper and some rock sliders. Still not the most exciting but I think it looks good.

 

[Quatre Coureur]

Nice job on the rims! Were they powdercoated or did u rattlecan them? If so what brand did u use? Oh and welcome btw.

 

[mikebontoft]

thanks man. honestly its plastidip. I've been aware of the stuff for a long time but I never wanted to try it. gave in and I liked the fact that if I hated the color it wouldn't ruin a nice set of stock wheels.

 

[Qjake]

Looks good! Really clean once it was, well, cleaned. What was the issue with the lady blowing up motors? Ya think she would have learned after the first one eh.

Good luck with it!

 

[mikebontoft]

Looks good! Really clean once it was, well, cleaned. What was the issue with the lady blowing up motors? Ya think she would have learned after the first one eh.

Good luck with it!

I really couldn't tell you. I know that the engine I rebuilt and installed was the THIRD this thing has had. I only put new bearings in and did the maintenance stuff on it.

The last engine had a little twisty piston action in cylinder 6. It can be rebuilt though. in fact it was a remanned in the first place. I have the .020" over marker label to prove it. since I can machine the whole engine and have the engine rebuilding knowledge I may just see what kind of fun I can get out of it with porting/valve job etc.


but yeah thanks. it was a nice grab. $1900 which is including a refreshed engine and new clutch installed.


took off the sidesteps today. man what a difference.

 

[Cali4Runnea]

Looks great! Looks like your doing a good job getting her back into shape and cared for. Love the new tires and the plasti dipped rims, totally changed the look of the truck. Keep it up, look forward to your build thread!

 

[mikebontoft]

phone fail

 

[mikebontoft]

Looks great! Looks like your doing a good job getting her back into shape and cared for. Love the new tires and the plasti dipped rims, totally changed the look of the truck. Keep it up, look forward to your build thread!

I just love how clean it looks... this picture with the running boards removed has the whole thing covered in dusty rain droplets.

as far as tires go, I went a little ocd. flipped em around so the white lettering was showing and tried to scrub them down but it was too faded. took a paint pen to them and spent about an hour per tire. oops

 

[Diverse4runner]

Welcome! The plasti-dip rims turned out pretty good. Just need to get rid of that rear end sag issue but it looks really clean.

 

[mikebontoft]

Yeah I was pretty surprised how they turned out.

Spring sag. Ordered my CC255 springs and tie rod adjusting sleeve (it was seized so I have had to live with a crooked steering wheel for a bit) so hopefully I will be able to both fix my sag and also alignment (springs should help that too). They should be here tomorrow. Only cost me $77 for everything.

Also dynoed it today... but I'm making a new thread for that. probably.