NateB
New member
Hey all. Decided to finally intro myself after lurking for a few months.
A little back ground on myself. I'm coming over from Nissan. I've been building and racing themfor the last 10 years. Finally decided on taking a break and build a frontier or xterra for some desert offroading/overland. Right around that time, which was a year ago I met my now fiance who drove a 2008 taco trd offroad. She told me that she wouldn't try and change my mind about driving Nissan cars, but as far as off road was considered you could not beat a yota. After letting me literaly punish her taco, I've never been more impressed with anything I've ever driven. Hers was very lucky to get a-trac before they actually implemented it in 09. That coupled with the 4x4 was incrediable and I was instantly hooked. To date we have still never used the rear locker for any crawling, mud, etc, being the trac system is literally that incredible.
Here is a picture of hers as it sits now, awaiting a ome 3" with the Dakar leaf pack and all pro front winch bumper which should ship out Monday.
Ok back to 4runners. With the number of dogs we have, and all the trips and cross country drives we do, I decided a 4runner would be best for travel. Not to mention having a truck and suv pretty much covers it all. So after looking for a few months I got a good deal on a 2004 sr5 v6.
I went to work removing the running boards, and color matching/de badging.
Some action shots.
Now, for some bad news...
I have to replace the motor. Started getting a missfire in the morning that would last 15-30 seconds. Being a master technician I already had a bad feeling that it was not fuel or ignition related. Pulled a pending code for a cylinder 6 missfire. I also noticed my coolant resivor bottle was almost fully drained. I pulled the plug and found it oily on the ground and electrode. It has 167k miles, so I may do a cld test to confirm a bust in the headgasket, or cracked head, but ive pretty much made up my mind on wanting a new motor. And I've found several 08 - 09 1gr engines under 50k miles in the $2500 range. I'm planning on swapping over the needed equipment for the cam timing update they did in 05, as well as do some other improvements wile the motor is out.
Up coming mods in the next few months:
16" konig countersteers with a good 265/75 A/T tire
Skids and sliders
Ome lift with heavy springs
Cbi winch bumper and winch
Arb roof rack/lights/over land gear
Long into, forgive me. This forum has a lot of good info, and most everyone seems pretty cool. Looking foward to meeting any AZ or WI guys, and learning from this forum. I'm currently in Wisconsin, but should be back in Arizona hitting the trails soon.
A little back ground on myself. I'm coming over from Nissan. I've been building and racing themfor the last 10 years. Finally decided on taking a break and build a frontier or xterra for some desert offroading/overland. Right around that time, which was a year ago I met my now fiance who drove a 2008 taco trd offroad. She told me that she wouldn't try and change my mind about driving Nissan cars, but as far as off road was considered you could not beat a yota. After letting me literaly punish her taco, I've never been more impressed with anything I've ever driven. Hers was very lucky to get a-trac before they actually implemented it in 09. That coupled with the 4x4 was incrediable and I was instantly hooked. To date we have still never used the rear locker for any crawling, mud, etc, being the trac system is literally that incredible.
Here is a picture of hers as it sits now, awaiting a ome 3" with the Dakar leaf pack and all pro front winch bumper which should ship out Monday.
Ok back to 4runners. With the number of dogs we have, and all the trips and cross country drives we do, I decided a 4runner would be best for travel. Not to mention having a truck and suv pretty much covers it all. So after looking for a few months I got a good deal on a 2004 sr5 v6.
I went to work removing the running boards, and color matching/de badging.
Some action shots.
Now, for some bad news...
I have to replace the motor. Started getting a missfire in the morning that would last 15-30 seconds. Being a master technician I already had a bad feeling that it was not fuel or ignition related. Pulled a pending code for a cylinder 6 missfire. I also noticed my coolant resivor bottle was almost fully drained. I pulled the plug and found it oily on the ground and electrode. It has 167k miles, so I may do a cld test to confirm a bust in the headgasket, or cracked head, but ive pretty much made up my mind on wanting a new motor. And I've found several 08 - 09 1gr engines under 50k miles in the $2500 range. I'm planning on swapping over the needed equipment for the cam timing update they did in 05, as well as do some other improvements wile the motor is out.
Up coming mods in the next few months:
16" konig countersteers with a good 265/75 A/T tire
Skids and sliders
Ome lift with heavy springs
Cbi winch bumper and winch
Arb roof rack/lights/over land gear
Long into, forgive me. This forum has a lot of good info, and most everyone seems pretty cool. Looking foward to meeting any AZ or WI guys, and learning from this forum. I'm currently in Wisconsin, but should be back in Arizona hitting the trails soon.
Last edited:
