I've been lurking and posting a bit, but I figured I'd start a proper build thread since I'm finally digging into the rebuild over the next couple of weeks.
Short story: I got shitcanned a few weeks ago, so instead of sitting around moping through the holidays, I went on Craigslist and bought a 1996 4Runner SR5 in Florida for $2,700. Probably should have spent a little more, but my overall project budget isn't much above that, and I knew I'd need to do repairs. Didn't know how many repairs, but I'll get to that in a sec. Engine had a small oil leak, but seemed to run strong enough without much driveline or transmission clunk, and since I was flying in from Brooklyn I didn't really give myself much room to dither.
My goal for this truck is two-fold, and simple enough: improve my mechanical abilities enough that I don't mind getting further away from the pavement, and to have a truck that I can rely on but not one so nice that I'm afraid to break it. (That was the problem with my last truck, a 2001 Land Cruiser.)
Since picking it up, I threw on new tires (Cooper AT [Pep Boys Edition!] 265/75) and slipped in some new cheap AutoZone pads over the terrible rotors. I went over the interior and replaced a few missing lights, retightened what I could, and started to take stock of what had happened to the truck.
Carfax showed a wreck in 2007, which the owner confirmed, but what he didn't confirm was how badly the repair work had been. In my rush to get on the road, I didn't do enough inventory of the repair work, so now I'm driving around a 165k vehicle that probably needs to be completely rewired from the firewall up, not to mention replacing all the plastic bits around the headlight assemblies since the decking screws that were there before haven't, you know, worked. Got a line on some new headlights in Chattanooga that I'm grabbing today, though, so hopefully I'll get that straightened out soon enough.
Next up on the list once I get to Kansas City to visit my family and my pal with a lift and a nice home garage: try to straighten out the front body structure so my hood latch closes tightly, the headlights can be properly aimed, troubleshoot the dim headlights from the short somewhere in the wiring, complete system fluid flush, new wires and plugs, Tundra brake swap, and maybe—if I can find the parts somewhere on the drive from Alabama to KC—throw in some used yy/yb + LC coils for a little lift.
I'm not trying to get this thing back to stock, which I keep forgetting sometimes, but usually remember when the rubber mallet starts looking like a good option. But I need to get the body holes covered up before I bring it back into the salt of New England, so I'll probably be doing some bodge work on top of the previous bodge work to fix up the very minor rust and terrible peeling clear coat on the hood and roof. I love the body color (1A1); I think it'll look great with a bunch of Plasti Dip on it. :guitar3:
And since I wrote a novel, just a final thanks to everyone on here. Great forum, super useful, and I hope to find a little project in the next few months to document that I can add to the cause.
Oh. Almost forgot. I replaced most of the blown out suspension components with cheap Chinese parts I got for $100 on eBay. They look sturdy enough for my purposes, but I bet it's making you guys that get into the rough stuff wince already!
