Red October II

[OTTERMATIC]

Man you’re giving this thing the works! And as a welder, I’ve got to commend you for putting down decent beads. Seen many, many builds with crap welds all over, nice to see something put together more properly.
I’ve got a second gen 4Runner, my first Toyota and first truck ever, only had it about a month and I’ve been slowly learning how everything works. It’s quite leaky and I think the head gaskets on my 3.0 are already giving out at only 159k miles, so I’ve been curious about doing a 3.4 swap. I’ve heard it’s a reasonably straight forward swap, but I’m definitely going to follow this thread for when you get to that point. Hope you’ll include some wiring details!

 

[Red October]

Man you’re giving this thing the works! And as a welder, I’ve got to commend you for putting down decent beads. Seen many, many builds with crap welds all over, nice to see something put together more properly.
I’ve got a second gen 4Runner, my first Toyota and first truck ever, only had it about a month and I’ve been slowly learning how everything works. It’s quite leaky and I think the head gaskets on my 3.0 are already giving out at only 159k miles, so I’ve been curious about doing a 3.4 swap. I’ve heard it’s a reasonably straight forward swap, but I’m definitely going to follow this thread for when you get to that point. Hope you’ll include some wiring details!

Thanks, just don't look too closely at everything, lol, some days I'm a decent welder, others not so much. I'm no pro, but my stuff should stay together at least.

For sure will include some wiring details as things progress. Be warned tho, my plan might not work for other applications.

 

[Red October]

Some holiday progresses

Figured out my shock towers and bracing. Packaging on this thing has been pretty tough, because of my desired low ride height. Everything has to move up, so shock tops start getting really close to things like the master cylinder, and the hood. The radiator fill cap and the strut bar that crosses the engine bay are about 1/4" from touching the hood, and the actual shock mounts are about 1/2" from the hood and just as close to the brake master. But, I think what I have is pretty decent at clearing everything and still maintaining functional suspension geometry.

As part of the shock tower, engine cage I decide to move away from using the radiator core support for it's named function, and went with a cage style mount for a couple of reasons. First my chosen radiator didn't clear the hood. Second I needed to get closer to the fan to make things work correctly. Finally the radiator core support is pretty beat, lots of cracks and holes, so I worry about how it will hold up. I'm mostly keeping it because I want to keep a hood grille and fenders on this beast and this is the easiest way to do that at the moment. Things may change along those lines later, but for now trying to stay street friendly-ish.

Also started my winch tray, it's... ..unique, but I dig it. The winch plate itself was free to me so I went with it. I'm trying to keep everything tucked in tight and I would like to keep the grille intact and not cut into it if I can avoid it, the way I have this does both pretty well.

 

[Cali 4runner]

Awesome project. Thanks for posting the progress!

 

[4RunnerSafari]

cool build

Sent fra min WAS-LX1 via Tapatalk

 

[Red October]

Here you can see the way I modified the core support to clear the winch and hopefully make it a bit stronger than it was. You can also see what I did in place of inner fenders. I made some small changes to the winch tray, and got it permanent. Still need to figure out what I'm gonna do with those d-rings/ frame end caps tho.

Finally got some bump-stops, and strike pads. Packaging woes again. Since i got the axle already setup with shock mounts and link brackets there was no room for bump-stops. I kinda think the previous owner didn't run any. I guess maybe I'm paranoid about bottoming my shocks out, but I think they are a needed item. Hydro-bumps weren't really a necessity, but they should be nice and help the ride.

And got some fender trimming done to clear 35s. I'm stoked that I get to keep most of my corner lights for a mostly stock look. I do plan to run 37's in the future, so I may end up cutting into the corner of the light. but for now it all clears my mockup tires with one side on the bump-stop, and the other side fully drooped.

 

[Red October]

Since I'm super close to having the front suspension ready to rock, but waiting for some parts. I started working on a couple other things.

I'm going to be completely bypassing the in-radiator transmission cooler, and running a larger external one. Personally it makes the most sense and eliminates the possibility of an internal leak killing my transmission.

Right next to it I'm going to run a pretty large power steering cooler. I will be building a hydro assist setup, and I need to add both cooling and fluid capacity to the system.

Now I've just gotta do some hose routing to keep everything safe and secure.

This should turn out being a pretty "cool" setup tho,... :naughty:

 

[Reinout]

Somewhere along the way I found a $25 top. I want to run a canvas topper, but it was hard to say no.

Wow $25 for a top!? Not that I need one but I'm always finding beat to hell tops for $200+