St Runner
Member
A little backstory on the vehicle. I bought it 5 years ago from a friend who was leaving island and only had it for a few months. Paid 7k The good - 2001 sport. Came from Florida, no rust and low milage (125k). The bad - spotty maintanence, it was missing the skid plate, grinding noise and vibration in low range and after i had it a few months the ABS light came on. I think this was the reason it was sold in Florida. The ABS is essential to the 2001-2002 4runner. It runs the ABS, speedometer and traction control. You cant just pull the fuse like the earlier models and it cost 3k$ to replace. Two years ago the speedometer failed and three months ago the transfer case blew up, but allowed me to slowly drive it back home. This last year the ABS has been getting worse, pulsing erratically and locking up the front left tire. I pulled out the transfer case and put in the j-shift transfer case from my 97 that I had laying around after doing the manual transmission swap. Rear driveshaft from the 97 and front driveshaft from the 98 parts car. Pretty cut and dried except for having to spin the transfer case lever 180 degrees. I bought a speed sensor for a tacoma hooked it up to the j-shift and ran three wires up to the gauge cluster. Working speedometer! Thanks Doc. Now came the fun part, I unplugged the ABS and threw it away. I bought a master cylinder for a non ABS 4runner, pulled the brake booster off the parts car and bolted it on. everything fits fine and lines up. The 2001-2002 4 runners have two brake lines that run to the rear for the traction control so you have to put a splitter up near the master cylinder. I used the same splitter that is found on the rear axle housing. I have a LSD off of a Lexus in the rear so I wont be needing the factory traction control. Bled the master cylinder and then bled and flushed the brake fluid. I did the tundra brake upgrade while doing this .
The most annoying thing is when you disconnect all the plugs from the ABS an alarm sounds. Toyota must have put a good amount of R+D into making the most irritating sound possible. Its also difficult to find, I finally located it behind the fuse box After bedding the brakes they work great. If you really get on them the front left will chirp but not lock up on dry pavement So I am very happy with how it came out. Two things I have not dealt with are the brake light and the 4wd light always on. I pulled the bulbs for the abs and traction control plus two of the three bulbs for the 4wd light, but am leaving the brake light on for now. Thankfully the check engine light is working properly now that the speedo is working without a p500 code
The most annoying thing is when you disconnect all the plugs from the ABS an alarm sounds. Toyota must have put a good amount of R+D into making the most irritating sound possible. Its also difficult to find, I finally located it behind the fuse box After bedding the brakes they work great. If you really get on them the front left will chirp but not lock up on dry pavement So I am very happy with how it came out. Two things I have not dealt with are the brake light and the 4wd light always on. I pulled the bulbs for the abs and traction control plus two of the three bulbs for the 4wd light, but am leaving the brake light on for now. Thankfully the check engine light is working properly now that the speedo is working without a p500 code