HawgWild's Build!

[HawgWild]

HawgWild's Trail Build!

My 4Runner is starting to come together, so I have decided to start a central thread for all that I have done to it.

Mods:

• Toytec Ultimate 3" Lift with 285/70/17 Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs
• Satoshi Grill Mod
• Plastidipped Wheels
• Husky Weatherbeaters
• Canvasback Cargo Liner
• Cobra 75 WX ST with 4' Firestik II

Planned/In Progress Mods:

• Light Racing UCAs | Waiting for Time to Install
• Gobi Stealth | Ordered - Waiting on it to ship
• Accessory Fusebox | Currently Researching
• Lights for the Gobi Rack | Currently Researching
• BudBuilt Hidden Winch Mount w/ Winch | Waiting on Funds
• On-Board Air Compressor | Waiting on Funds
• Hi-Lift Jack | Waiting on Gobi Rack for Mount

Background
So I guess from the beginning. I had been driving cars since I was 16. I had never owned a truck and I wanted something big! In high school I was given a Chrysler 300 and drove it for nearly 7 years! That’s pretty good for a Chrysler!

I finally decided i wanted a 4Runner. More importantly, a trail edition. Salsa Red was my preferred color, but was having trouble locating one. I finally found the exact 4Runner I wanted. The problem? It was in St Louis, over a 5 hour drive.

I eventually worked out a deal with them for it via email, and the following Saturday I made the trip! Yay! It was a terribly long drive. The whole trip took 12 hours, but I made it there and back safely.

I have always had tinted windows, and I hated not having them again on the 4Runner, so within 2 weeks I got the front 2 tinted at 30%. It matches the back well, but I'm not exactly happy. I want them all darker. So I will probably be getting all of the windows done here in the future. I never really got any good photos of the truck after I got the windows tined except for this one.

A month and a half after I purchase the vehicle i finally get it lifted and get new tires put on. A local shop did the lift, as I have had zero experience with all of this. Heck, anything I do to this vehicle is likely going to be a new learning experience for me. Here is how it looks after the lift and new tires were installed.

Now is when the modding will begin. I plan on doing mostly everything from here on out myself. I have so much to learn!

 

[HawgWild]

I guess this isn’t much of a “mod” but it was lots of fun!

Plasti-Dip Weekend!

One weekend I decided to plasti-dip my wheels. I started on a Saturday morning, and ended up spending the whole day plasti-dipping various parts of the 4Runner.

Lets start with the wheels. I own jack stands, but I didn't have a jack capable of lifting the 4Runner anymore since I got the lift put on, so I decided to cover the brakes with plastic bags and spray till I was content. It turned out great I was very satisfied with how it looked at this point.

After I actually moved the car I noticed the areas that were facing down when I first dipped the wheels had a very thin layer. There was some silver showing through. I ended up purchasing a floor jack a few weeks later and took all of the wheels off and redid it. It is now up to my high OCD standards.

But back to the weekend of Plasti-Dip!

The wheels weren't enough. I really like the look of the vinyl wrapped hood some members decided to do. I just haven't seen a Salsa Red 4Runner with a wrapped hood. I wanted to see how it looked before I invested in the wrap. so I taped up the front and covered most of the areas I didn't want covered in plastic. I started spraying. Here is the result.

I like the look of the black hood, but did a terrible job at evenly spraying on the plasti-dip. It was uneven and even spotty, but we will get back to that in a bit.

While doing the hood I decided I wanted to black out the little rear chrome in the back. So I taped it off and started spraying. This turned out much better!

I am very happy with the end result! But like I mentioned before I really hated the spotty uneven mess I had on the hood, so off it goes. It was a pain to take off. You could tell which areas were hard to reach because it was thin and broke easily when peeling off. Also the hood scoop was the worst part about the whole thing. I ended up using goo gone and a hose to get it all off the hood scoop.

 

[HawgWild]

So here begins my first real mod… We will see how this goes.

Satoshi Grill Mod

I was terrified about this. It’s the first mod I did to the 4Runner. I hadn't even ever used a Dremel before this. I did lots of homework, and felt I knew how to take the grill off even before I had ever done it. I was still extremely nervous about cutting the grill off a brand new vehicle. The following two threads were immensely helpful:

• Satoshi Grill Mod
• How-To-Guide (Grillcraft Upper/Lower Grill)

Now there were some minor hiccups, the area for the leftmost and rightmost tabs on the grill is very small. My hands could barely fit. Also when putting it back on, I broke two tabs that attach the grill to the bumper. Not a big deal since the broken tabs were on separate sides of the grill.

The mesh grill is held on by nothing but zip ties. I'll get a close-up picture one of these days and show how I did it. The TOYOTA emblem is held on my double-sided tape as well as a screw in the back in the middle hole. If I ever decide to take the grill off again I'll snap a picture of how it’s held on.

Below is the final product. I am satisfied for now. Now that it is all said and done I have a better idea of how I want it to look. My biggest complaint is that the Diamond XXL mesh from customercargrills is far to thin and transparent. I want to, in the future, redo this mod and put in a mesh that looks more like the OEM mesh.

 

 

[HawgWild]

After I got it lifted I went to a very basic local trail in the area. I had a great time, found some mud, and got dirty. I knew after that weekend that I needed to upgrade from the stock floor mats.

Husky and Canvasback Goodies!

Fast forward a few weeks, I finally decide to order Husky Weatherbeaters, and a CanvasBack cargo liner. I get the Husky liners in right away. I had to way about 3 weeks to get the Canvasback cargo liner.

I couldn't be any happier with both products. There really isn’t much else to say about both of these products. They are both great!

You can probably see pictures of the Husky Weatherbeaters elsewhere on the forums, but this is my build thread and I'm going to put them here as well!

The driver side is dirty. Thanks to these I no longer worry about what is on my shoes that could be tracked into the car. They wash off easily!

 

[HawgWild]

So that's where I am at Today. I have everything purchased to install the CB. I even have the CB wired in. All thats left is to run the coax from the back up to the center console.

Unfortunately, I don't have the truck right now. It is in the body shop for the week..

As soon as I get the 4Runner back I will finish up the CB, and I have some Light Racing UCAs that are waiting to be installed. They arrived the same day my 4Runner went into the shop.

 

[Tengu]

Oooo a dirty salsa, she was a bad girl. :girl:

Good job, and thanks for sharing.

 

[Whiplash Willy]

Nice 4nr! That sucks to hear about your Door, I hope the collision shop does a good job with it!

Can you give more details on how you taped/masked off the rear hatch to Plasti-Dip the rear emblem, and how hard it was to remove to excess?

I really want to do this, but am a bit nervous.

 

[Gs4RUNR]

Looks Good... Congrats

 

[HawgWild]

Nice 4nr! That sucks to hear about your Door, I hope the collision shop does a good job with it!

Can you give more details on how you taped/masked off the rear hatch to Plasti-Dip the rear emblem, and how hard it was to remove to excess?

I really want to do this, but am a bit nervous.

Plasti-Dip is very forgiving.

I just ran some masking tape around the whole black rear plastic section. I choose to do it this way instead of just taping off each letter individually was for 2 reasons. Time, and I had a few small scratches on top of the Toyota emblem due to someone opening the rear hatch in the garage.

Ohh and that's paper towels underneath.. I didn't have any newspaper and had a roll sitting in the garage.. haha I just used what I had.

Sorry about the picture quality. Not only was it a phone picture, but it was also texted to me which further reduces the quality...

 

[Antman]

Great start! Salsa TE's are so nice...:trophy:


Quick tip I learned from member [MENTION=83218]Vegas[/MENTION] - Pressure washer takes plastidip off really easily!

I spent 3 hrs on 1 wheel removing my dip- peeling and using Acetone.
Using the pressure washer I completed the other 3 in short order with little effort.

 

[JustinFro]

Great looking rig and nice write-up. Congrats on graduating college and joining the real world.

 

[HawgWild]

Oooo a dirty salsa, she was a bad girl. :girl:

Good job, and thanks for sharing.

Nothing better than hot salsa!!! Dirty hot salsa!!

Great start! Salsa TE's are so nice...:trophy:


Quick tip I learned from member [MENTION=83218]Vegas[/MENTION] - Pressure washer takes plastidip off really easily!

I spent 3 hrs on 1 wheel removing my dip- peeling and using Acetone.
Using the pressure washer I completed the other 3 in short order with little effort.

I had the option to get a black trail edition from the local dealer, but I think I would have regretted not waiting for the Sexy Salsa Red. It really is a fantastic color on the Trail 4Runner!!

 

[Tengu]

It is indeed. I wish there was one around when I found mine.

 

[KS4RUNNER]

Your truck looks great. I never see any salsa red TE's in KC. Nice work

 

[mikey's2010SR5]

Looking good. I am on the fence about Plasti dipping my hood at this moment. My hood has some dings in it so wrapping it might not come out as good.

Maybe I will give it a go this Saturday. I do have three cans of dip laying around.

 

[HawgWild]

So I finally got the 4Runner back this past week. So, that means I finished installing the CB!!

Prior to my door being destroyed and having to put the truck into a shop for a week I had installed the Cobra 75 CB radio the night before it was towed away. I took the whole center console out so I could drill a hole for the cable to go through.

I mounted the box inside underneath. I don't have a picture of it currently, but I used some 3M double sided tape to attach it to the actual center console. Here is where it comes out in the center console.

Now for the part that scared me.. Running the 18' coax from the mount on the rear hatch all the way up to the center console where the CB is located.

So I started at the mount, and I am not comfortable with drilling holes in the rear hatch yet, so I used some of that leftover tape to keep the coax cable in place.

And then ran it into the existing wire line.

The hardest part of the whole thing was running the coax. After I got the inside the vehicle, I ran it down the driver side. The area above the back tire was extremely tight and took forever to fish the cable through. I used a mixture of fishing line and a wire hanger. I was starting to realize that my 18' cable wasn't long enough, and I quickly realized this when I finally got it to the rear drivers side door...

I ended up running the cable under the rear Husky Liners to the center console.

It works and you cant really see any cables, something that I am extremely OCD about.

As far as the mount, I used the same one as Qjake. The Comet RS720.

I choose this mostly because it was cheap.. Normally not a good idea. I was worried that it was low quality, but it is mostly metal and feels strong. Now Qjake's broke and his fix turned out good! I may end up doing this sooner rather than later because the last thing I want is my antenna to be dragging down the road behind me.


Next on the list is installing the Light Racing UCA's that have been sitting in my garage for the past week and a half.