Regulator213's Build Thread

[regulator213]

Ok, so I have been a long time lurking member on here since about 2010. Every time I attempt to make a contribution or a write up it seems that it has already been done multiple times before me so I always felt there was no point. This time I figure my experiences may be a little different than everybody else's so posting them might be worth it.

I have owned an 04 V6 as well as another 99 SR5 before I bought this truck.

About two months ago I purchased this 2000 limited with factory e-locker and about 186,000 miles on her. When I found it the current owner had only owned it for about two months. He said he didn't have time to use to for what he intended it to be used for (camping) so he wanted to sell it. He was the second owner to a family who bought it new from the dealership in San Jose, CA.

At 186,000 miles the owner had not yet replaced the timing belt so I was pretty skeptical about it but it was in my price range so I decided to check it out anyway. When I showed up and drove it I immediately knew that was the one. It was pretty much spotless and had clearly been garaged and driven only the grocery store and back its entire life. There isn't a spot of rust on the frame or engine. The owner even had the original window sticker, all three keys, and both key fob's from the dealership. I was sold.

Well on the way home I noticed the dreadful highway driveline vibration that everybody gets. Of course the guy didn't mention that and I was stupid and didn't take it on the highway when I test drove it. So when I got home I pulled off the driveshaft to check the rear transfer case flange bolt and it was still staked and tight. I called a driveline shop up in Sacramento off a recommendation from guys over at YT called Driveline Service of Sacramento to have them balance my DS. THESE GUYS WERE GREAT. They noticed immediately that the person who served the slip yoke last installed the rear U joint out of phase so they re phased the u joint and found the rear joint bad as well. They replaced that for me and I was on my way.

After about a week I noticed the vibration was back again so I called up DLS and they said to bring it back in and they'll look at it. Frustrated as hell I pulled it back off and drove it up to Sac again in my buddies car, this time they put my DS in front of everybody else and had it done again in a few hours. They said the ball in the double cardan joint was just slightly loose and they missed it last time. So they rebuilt the DC joint, sprayed a layer of rust resistant paint, and lubricated all the joints for me ready to install at no extra cost! Great guys here, super honest and knowledgable. Everything has been smooth as butter since.

Again, anybody with driveline issues in the norther Cali area call Driveline Service of Sacramento. They are great.

 

[regulator213]

So, the first thing I did was replace all of the fluids including the transmission, front and rear differential, engine oil and filter, then checked on the power steering and brake fluids. The following week I did the timing belt with Toyota belts and water pump.

I like to drink when I work on my car however having only done this one other time in the past 7 years I probably should have stayed sober for this one. I got the belt installed and went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning I didn't completely trust myself that it was timed correctly so I did it again just to make sure. Everything turned out ok.

After that I replaced the fuel filter, and spark plugs. To my surprise someone had installed the four prong bosche spark plugs on one bank and some single prong plugs on the other bank. So It felt good to get all of this stuff done correctly.

I wanted to get all this stuff done so I could take it camping the following weekend in the mountains near Lake Tahoe and not be concerned with it. Here's some pictures I took on the trip.

We drove up a 4X4 trail in the Sierra Butes to the base of a fire lookout house that looked out over all of the Sierra Nevada's. It was incredible.

 

[regulator213]

Shortly after that trip I realized how bad my suspension was. Looks like the factory shocks and springs have never been replaced. There was some clear sagging in the rear as every time I'd go over a speed bump I'd hit the bump stops pretty hard. After looking at the rear suspension I could see the bump stops were only about an 1" off the axle. You can see how low the rear was sitting here.

After LOTS AND LOTS of searching and reading on the forums I decided to go with the OME 881/890 kit with the top plate spacers from Toytec. I wanted a somewhat smoother ride and I heard these were the way to go over bilsteins for that reason. I opted for Toytec to build the front coilovers for me since the factory hardware was pretty worn out and it would save me some time in the installation too.

The rear installation was pretty straight forward.

The front however, took me awhile. I was told I could just force the upper control arm down using a pry bar to give me enough length to get the bottom shock mount in the lower control arm. I ended up finding out that wasn't the case. The upper ball joint CANNOT flex enough to get that kind of droop to get the shock in the lower control arm. I ended up breaking the shock boot on the passenger side trying to force it in with a crow bar.

Fortunately ARB was nice enough to send me a replacement and I got it fixed.

To get the lower shock mount in I had to disconnect the sway bar end links, upper control arm, and tie rod ends. After doing this it was MUCH easier to get the lower shock mount in place. To separate the ball joints I found this neat little tool at Harbor Freight for like $20 and it worked great.

Next I installed the front diff drop kit. That was pretty easy and straight forward.

Here is a picture of the spacers installed.

And here is the truck all said and done.

 

[regulator213]

After the lift was finished I moved onto lights. I have a weird attraction to lights of all kinds. Especially LED lights. Not to mention my friends and I like to go camping away from all the well lit sites and people so having adequate light out there is super helpful. My front two corner lights managed to burn out within week of each other so I bought two amber LED's to replace them.

I also replaced the two map lights in front with red LED's so I can turn them on a night while driving and it not affect my night vision, they work great.

Next was the dome light. I didn't think diamond or crystal white light would look good on the tan leather interior so I went with the softer off-white color. I got the brightest they had which was fairly bright but not as bright as I hoped.

So as you can see they are brighter but not a whole lot. Still worth it thought IMO. I also put those same lights in the cargo area and they worked pretty good back there.

The last lights I replaced were the reverse lights. They are super helpful when backing up into a pitch black camp site at night. These LED's are 28 LED stalks rated at 550 LM a piece. They're pretty awesome.

Here are the after shots.

 

[yotamaine]

Looking good man I'm really diggin the lights you got you think you could give me the size of the lights I would need to do my corners, map lights, dome light, cargo light, and also the back up lights? That would be awesome if it not too much to ask

 

[regulator213]

Yeah man, if you go to www.superbrightleds.com they have a vehicle fitment guide there for you. However, the fitment guide says the map lights (the red LED's I used up front) are 3175 bulbs. That is incorrect. They are actually BA9 bulbs.

 

[regulator213]

Most of the camping I do is up in the mountains and as we all know pretty well, driving fully loaded with gear through mountain passes quickly becomes very challenging for our already underpowered trucks. So I went ahead and did the ISR mod for better air flow.

I started with a bare piece of exhaust piping following a write up I read earlier. To make it more uniform I strung up the pipe inside a box with some safety wire and painted it with some flat black plastidip I had laying around.

Next I started looking into the deckplate mod to see weather it was worth it or not. I found an old write up that someone did with different combinations of intakes and the deckplate mod. Using a dyno for each combination he found that using the K&N intake actually yielded less power than stock and the best option for power was simply either the deckplate with an aftermarket amsoil filter (which they don't make anymore) or to remove the elbow after the airbox completely. I chose this option since I don't see myself running through high water anytime soon, plus it is completely reversible.

The elbow removed

The hole in the fender where the elbow went through

 

[regulator213]

Onto more lights...I started looking into some LED light bar's for the adventures further into the woods and came across a 32" curved light bar for my front bumper. It was just a cheap Ebay bar for $80 which was labeled a spot/flood combo bar at 18,000lm. Although I think for $80 it does its job the description was way off. Its nowhere NEAR 18,000lm on the output and there is little to no "spot" lighting at all. Its extremely spread out which is nice but it only lights things up for about 50 feet or so then it drops off. You can see though it fits perfectly between the headlights and curves with the grille.

Here's a picture of just headlights and then just the LED bar. You can see how the light is spread pretty far up and to the sides.

Overall I'm happy with it but I went ahead and ordered another bar for the roof to help with the distance light, i'm just waiting on some brackets to be made. Those pictures will be up later. :biggrin1:

 

[regulator213]

Finally got to get out and do some camping again after all my hard work :drum: haha. My buddy and I went up to Mt. Shasta/Trinity forest area in northern Cali for some camping. Here are some pics of the trip.

All loaded up

Mt Shasta from the highway

Our campsite

Gathering firewood

Pictures of the lake we camped next to and Mt. Shasta from the top of our hike

Subway...Have a slice of pizza :clap2:

Lake Trinity was so dried up we were able to drive down the boat ramp right into the lake bed.

We did our best not to disturb the other boaters with our wake...

There were these crazy plants that looked like something out of a Dr. Suess book. I think they were some type of seaweed. The crazy part though is this part of the lake has been dry for years. I don't know how they are surviving.

Pictures of the second campsite...the campsite was closed so we had the entire place to ourselves.

Needed a bit of extra light

 

[regulator213]

last week I helped by buddy pick out and hook up a light bar to his 1st gen 4runner on 37's.

Looks pretty badass

 

[regulator213]

This past weekend I did quite a bit of stuff, most of it preventative but some other stuff too. First I started off with Wheelers Off Road steering rack bushings. I didn't even really feel like my stock ones were bad I just assumed i'd do it for preventative mx to help with the bigger tires later. Surprisingly the feel in the steering wheel was much better than I'd thought it would be.

Theres my helper

Got myself a new sticker too..I think it added like 10-15 hp.

Installed a B&M supercooler

I moved my sub amplifier to underneath the driver seat to get it out of harms way in the trunk when I load up the trunk full of gear.

The 10" infiniti sub sounds great and fits perfect under the cargo cover. It was a great choice.

For my LED light bars I needed a solid switch so while extensively scouring the internet for ideas one caught my attention that I couldn't look away from. Up here in northern California sasquatch has been known to run around through the woods. So to help spot him next time while camping....

I just had to make up a quick disconnect harness for it and it fit right into the factory switch spots. Here are some night shots

Off

On

Lastly, I replaced the factory speakers with some new kicker 6.5" rounds. For the price, they are the best sounding speakers I have found.

The factory speaker wire goes through the speaker bracket so I used a round file to open up the channel some more to fit the bigger after market wire.

Here's the finished product

 

[nc-grayson]

Great start and good looking truck you have there! Anything other than enlarging the wire hole on the stock speaker bracket that weight need to kniwaboutduring installation of those new kickers?

 

[regulator213]

Great start and good looking truck you have there! Anything other than enlarging the wire hole on the stock speaker bracket that weight need to kniwaboutduring installation of those new kickers?

Thanks man. No the installation was pretty straight forward. The new speakers screw right into the factory speaker mounts fine. I ended up unplugging the factory tweeters though so they wouldn't interfere with the new tweeters. I'm glad I did too, I think it sounds great the way it is.