Murph's Build and Off Road Thread

It was a busy summer and fall. I've had several good wheeling trips. GSMTR in May. Whitewater rafting on the Ocoee and exploring the Cherokee National Forest's FSRs in August. Appalachian Toyota Roundup in September. The Earthbound Overland Fall Ride on the Tennessee Dirt Devil Trails in October. And, the Southeast Toyota Land Cruiser Association annual meeting & trail ride last weekend. I'll try to get some pictures up soon of these events.

Quite some time ago I picked up an e-locker rear axle from a '99 T4R at a pull a part junkyard. I finally found a reasonably priced front diff with the matching 4.30 gearset. Today, I had a chance to clean and paint both in preparation for the retrofit in my 2001. This is gonna be fun!

 
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Great Smoky Mountain Trail Ride

The STLCA puts on GSMTR every May. The last several years it has been held at WindrocknPark in Oliver Springs, TN. Once again we had a great time.

Camp













On Saturday night of GSMTR, we hold a raffle and raise money to benefit the off-road community in some way. I was super excited when my number was called to win this ARB fridge/freezer. I've put it to good use since.



Southeast Overland donated the fridge for the raffle, so I chose to add a little advertising for their sake. If you're looking for anything off-road related, look them up.

 
Last night I started work on the e-locker retrofit.


I was able to pull the original axle out. I used labeled sandwich bags to keep track of the nuts and bolts. I have a tendency to misplace at least one or two in a project like this.



Tonight I was able to install new seals and o-rings in the e-locked axle. I'll be working on cleaning up the other components and swapping axle shafts/brakes from the original axle to the new. I replaced bearings a little over a year ago, so I trust those more than the unknown junkyard axles.



I'll be cleaning up and repainting the frame and sliders while I have everything out of the way. I also need to straighten up my gas skid and repaint it. It has taken a beating over the last few months. I plan to buy an aftermarket skid eventually. For now I'll keep hammering this one out.



And just because everyone likes a good wheeling picture....

This is from Windrock Park back in September. We attended the Appalachian Toyota Roundup. It was a dust bowl.

 
Made a little more progress today. Axle under the truck. Brake lines and speed sensors installed and connected. Control arms, panhard bar & driveshaft bolted up. Springs installed.

Family time and football kept me from getting as far as I wanted. But, it was worth it.

I still need to source the multi-conductor cables needed to make the wiring harness. Some folks have used 6-conductor from the e-locker harness to the ECU, but I count seven wires from the e-locker harness. I need to study the wiring diagram that [MENTION=44220]BigFishAllDay[/MENTION] created to get a better understanding. I've never been real good with wiring.

I also decided to replace the shock bushings, so I'll get those on order too. Better yet, I may buy some 97 Landcruiser shocks to go with my OME 891s. The OME shocks have always been too harsh unless I'm loaded down with camping/wheeling gear.

I'm going to take my brakes apart, clean up & check the hardware and then re-install. I've had some rear brake issues since I replaced the shoes a few months ago. I hope this will correct the problem. I may need to buy new self adjusters.

The red paint on the locker motor was a joke that stuck. I'll be buying a skid to mount on it for extra protection. It'll also hide the red a little more.







 
This e-locker project is taking much longer than anticipated. This is a busy time of year for me. So, I get in a little work when I can. The rear axle is done (minus the wiring) and all 4 wheels are back on the ground. Tonight I finished the brake refresh. Tomorrow I'll start swapping in the 4.30 front diff.

The brakes are so clean...




Last week my new ride came in. I'm still waiting for the shop to get it upfitted. I believe I'll let ACDC christen the radio on its maiden voyage.

 
I had planned on wrapping up my e-locker conversion last weekend. The wiring needed for the harness had been ordered. The rear locked axle had been cleaned and installed under the truck. The 4.10 front diff came out to make way for the 4.30. I transfered the ADD tube and mounts to the 4.30 diff. All was well until...

I noticed that the companion flange on the 4.30 diff was bent. When I went to transfer the diff to my workbench the night before, it fell from the 4" blocks it had been sitting on and landed on the flange. I didn't notice that it was bent until the night I was planning to install it.

The flange was spinning true around the pinion shaft. But one side of the flange that meets up with the driveshaft was bent in toward the diff ever so slightly.



I had 2 spare diffs with perfectly straight companion flanges. But, I wasn't too confident about swapping them and possibly messing with the backlash and preload. After some research and advice from friends, I felt like I could handle the swap.

I started by removing the flange from the donor diff (which happens to be my original one with a missing ring gear tooth). Removed the flange with a 3-arm puller. Easy enough. Took the outer bearing and "pinion spacer" out and found that there was a crush sleeve and not a solid spacer.



I then moved to the 4.30 diff. Because the diffs have crush sleeves and not solid spacers, I had to be sure to reinstall the pinion nut to the same location to maintain the correct pinion preload. I made match marks on the pinion nut and pinion shaft. I also took a reference photo to show the depth of the nut on the threads. There were no threads to count, so the reference photo helped a lot with installing the nut to the correct depth.

match marks


overhead reference


Once I had my reference points, I pulled the bent flange and set it aside. Since I had access to the pinion seal, I went ahead and replaced it for good measure. The local Toyota dealer didn't have one in stock, so I bought a National brand seal from O'Reilly. I've heard they're as good as OEM. It looked to be a quality part.

I almost forgot to take a picture of the new seal.


I got the straight flange installed, tightened down the nut to the reference points and re-staked it.


That was a pain, but I learned a valuable lesson. Take care of your flange. ;-)

Now on to the re-install...
 
I finished up the 4.30 front diff last Friday night. The bent flange was a bit of a setback, but it all turned out ok in the end.

Lifting that chunk of iron is much easier with a little help from a friend.



The rear mount for the front diff is absolute proof that Toyota engineers hate Toyota mechanics. It's nearly impossible to install the diff with the mount already torqued onto the carrier. (I've done it once before. A total pain in the rear.) And installing it after getting the diff in place is also extremely difficult. Those bolts are supposed to be torqued to 80 ft/lbs. I could barely fit a ratcheting wrench in there to tighten it. I had to use my highly calibrated torque elbow to get it torqued correctly.





All done.


All that's left on my e-locker retrofit is to create and install the wiring harness.

I'll be using the elocker ECU and OEM switch from the 99 4Runner that the axle came out of.

4Runners up to 2000 had an RR Diff Lock indicator in the instrument cluster even if it didn't come with a locker. In 2001 and 2002, there was no option for a locker, so the indicator on the instrument cluster was not available. With some research and help of others that have done this before, I'm going to wire the OEM switch's light to act as the indicator for the locker. It will not be illuminated when the diff is unlocked. It will flash during the locking or unlocking phase. And, it will be illuminated when the diff is locked.

In the stock form, an elocker can only be used when the truck is in 4lo. I'll be grounding the 4LO wire so that the locker can be used any time; 2HI 4HI or 4LO.

Some retrofits grounded the speed safety switch. That would allow the locker to be activated at any speed. Since I don't want any accidental locker activations at 70 mph, I will be tapping into the 4WD ECU's speed wire to keep the 5 mph speed safety in play.

Here's the wiring diagram I'll be using. I wanted to give credit where credit is due, but I'm having trouble locating exactly where I found this. (Edit: I finally found it again. Thanks, [MENTION=95196]shinyblackdeer[/MENTION], for the awesome diagram.) I also used [MENTION=44220]BigFishAllDay[/MENTION] 's diagram to adapt this one to my needs. If you're doing an e-locker retrofit, BFAD's thread is invaluable.



And the wires finally made it...2 days late. I hope to be able to solder the wiring harness and install it over the next couple of days.
 
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Chuckles89 said:
I don't even want to think about what bent that flange. That's some thick metal!
Click to expand...

The sheer weight of the diff falling at the right (or wrong) angle is what bent it. It merely tipped off of the 4x4 block and hit the concrete floor. So, it didn't fall far.
 
I started working on the wiring harness tonight. I had ordered 25 ft each of several colors of 16 gauge and 18 gauge GXL wire from 4Rcustomwire on e-bay.
It came in yesterday. I wish that I had spent a little more coin and got the TXL for the thinner insulation. I also realized I should have bought 18 ga for the 2 large gauge wires and 20 ga for the rest. Oh well. A little extra copper won't hurt.



I had already determined what color wire would be linked to each wire from the oem pigtails of the e-locker harness, ECU and the RR DIFF Lock switch. (Check the diagram above.) I started with measuring out the wires needed to extend from the ECU to the actuator harness.
*
I broke out the TrakPower soldering station (thanks RC hobby) and my cheap chinese hot air station and got to soldering the actuator pigtail.









Once I covered the joints with heat shrink (marine grade for the exterior joints), I wrapped the full length of the wire in electrical tape and then added flex tubing to the portion of the harness that would run along the outside of the body for extra protection.

*Wrapped wires and flex tube. Looking like an OEM harness.



I'm calling it quits for the night. I'll join the harness to the ECU pigtail and join the ECU to the switch pigtail tomorrow. Getting so much closer to having a locked '01 4Runner.
 
The wiring harness is finished now. I used the OEM ECU and diff lock switch to create a nearly stock setup. I hooked it up to the battery to test it out. Check out the video.



All that's left is routing the harness, mounting the ECU, finding a spot for the switch and finalzing the harness connections for 12v power, grounds and the speed sensor wire.
 
It’s been too long. Not much has changed on the 4Runner, but it’s been on many adventures.

Recently I picked up a 1972 Datsun 521 truck bed trailer. I’ve been working hard to get it road and trail ready. There’s alot to do, but eventually it will be an offroad camper complete with a CVT Mt. Denali RTT.

43617677572_74b8b11460_z_d.jpg


42759814535_dbbf48cdcd_z_d.jpg
 
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ugamurph said:
The wiring harness is finished now. I used the OEM ECU and diff lock switch to create a nearly stock setup. I hooked it up to the battery to test it out. Check out the video.



All that's left is routing the harness, mounting the ECU, finding a spot for the switch and finalzing the harness connections for 12v power, grounds and the speed sensor wire.
Click to expand...

using the OEM ECU, are you only limited to locking the rear while in 4low? or can you lock at any time?
 
[MENTION=94929]Taylor20[/MENTION] Thanks! I’ve been away from the forum for a while. I check in every now and then when I’m searching for answers. ��

[MENTION=78966]Lamer[/MENTION]
I am able to lock it in 2HI, 4HI and 4LO. I did not connect the wire that limits the locker to 4LO.
 
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