Ripcord's 2002 4Runner Sport Ed.

[fightman80]

Lookin good man! I've got a big crack on my Impala right now, that is driving me nuts.........thinking of swapping that out soon.....

 

[GottaBeTRD]

Thanks! I really need a better overall picture though. I took about 6 hours to do the LED's and move the CB. I really took my time and made sure it was right.

Actually, after I got it all back together, I had to tear into the gauges again because the hot spots were not quite gone yet.



I did that today, I meant to PM you or post in the clock color thread but I forgot, haha. The 'Lavender' swatch was the PERFECT neutral white color, just a bit too dark (not transparent enough). The 'Medium Lavender' swatch was perfect transparency, but left a Sea Green color on the clock.

I'm going to stick with the darker Lavender swatch, my Head Unit has a clock on it anyway.

nice! yeah I use my head unit clock on bright days too. Does yous shine through pretty good during the night though?

 

[4-Ripcord]

Somewhat, it will do.

I keep trying to take a better night time picture, but the 4 second shutter time is too much for me to stay perfectly still.

And the auto setting w/out flash just sucks and doesn't do it justice..

 

[96743runner]

Wow, your rig has come a long way...nice job! Diggin the white gauges too.

 

[maxspeed96ct]

Looks good, I have to try to wax paper trick on my gauges.

Were you able to reach all the bulbs without completely removing the gauge needles and faces?

(Im just affraid to remove the needles , dont want to mess anything up)

 

[4-Ripcord]

Looks good, I have to try to wax paper trick on my gauges.

Were you able to reach all the bulbs without completely removing the gauge needles and faces?

(Im just affraid to remove the needles , dont want to mess anything up)

I didn't remove the needles. Just take out the two small screws next to the needle and you can rotate the gauge face enough to reach the lights.

Make sure that the waxy side of the paper is facing the lights.

 

[GottaBeTRD]

wow! that turned out being a nice shade of white. i guess the brightness only really matters in the night time anyway cause thats when your interior lighting is on. cool man!

 

[4-Ripcord]

Tint

So far its just 20% on the fronts and a 4" 5% banner. Got it done at the same place that did my windshield replacement, so they gave me a discount.
$74

And in case you missed it earlier, I removed the decals. So much better.

Ignore the glare and reflections.

Matches up pretty nicely.

Windshield banner from the inside, at about eye level.

I'm VERY glad I asked for a 4" banner instead of a 6" banner. I don't think I could stand the banner being any lower than it is right now.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Glad to see you finally got a build thread put together over here man! You did a great job on writing up the build, even better than the one you did on YT.

Truck is looking good as always. The tint came out pretty cherry. I'm with you on the banner, 4" is a good height. If I was in the shop though, I'd be thinking "hmmmmm.... 4" doesn't sound like much, maybe I'll go 6."

I got the front lift bumped up on mine today... just have to hammer the pinch weld and put the wheels back on. It took me 3 hours to remove/ disassemble/ adjust/ reassemble/ reinstall both sides... compared to a day and a half the first time... learning curve much?

 

[4-Ripcord]

Glad to see you finally got a build thread put together over here man! You did a great job on writing up the build, even better than the one you did on YT.

Truck is looking good as always. The tint came out pretty cherry. I'm with you on the banner, 4" is a good height. If I was in the shop though, I'd be thinking "hmmmmm.... 4" doesn't sound like much, maybe I'll go 6."

I got the front lift bumped up on mine today... just have to hammer the pinch weld and put the wheels back on. It took me 3 hours to remove/ disassemble/ adjust/ reassemble/ reinstall both sides... compared to a day and a half the first time... learning curve much?

Thanks man! Glad to hear you finally got that done. Did you reconsider the splash guards? If you are not going to use them for sure. I can swap mine with yours, I bought the exact same ones, mine are just unopened and untrimmed. Maybe you can return them then or something. I still plan to install some.

And yeah, that learning curve is crazy. Figured that out after my lift, when my bud with the Tacoma went to install his. It took us like maybe 2 hours to assemble and install his 881 w/5100's on both sides.
The back was all different with the leaf springs though. And Tacoma's also don't have the same rear shocks as we do. They have an eye bolt on top instead of a stud, WAY easier to get off.


Oh and I ditched that cheapo PepBoy's tranny gauge and ordered an Autometer from amazon. I have all the brass fittings I need, just need to get the wiring set up. Most likely finish that up on Wednesday.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

RE the guage, I saw that you had updated that in your sig. What model # gauge did you get?

 

[4-Ripcord]

RE the guage, I saw that you had updated that in your sig. What model # gauge did you get?

The 4357. That's the one you have right?

 

[BigFishAllDay]

That's the one. Let me know if you have any ??'s on the install. One tip: be careful when you're tightening down the wires on the sender. The small nut on the very end of the sender tightens down around a little stud that is glued into the sender... if you torque it too much, you'll break that glue and it'll sorta spin freely in there. I did that to mine. Still works fine, so

Oh yeah, about the splash guards, I'm not sure yet. Gonna see where it ends up after bumping up the lift. I may try to hack them up and see if I can get them on there. I'll let you know.

 

[quicksilvr]

Love love love the rig Ripcord.

Did you think about getting a ScanGauge II to monitor transmission temps (along with other stuff) instead of getting an analog gauge?

 

[4-Ripcord]

That's the one. Let me know if you have any ??'s on the install. One tip: be careful when you're tightening down the wires on the sender. The small nut on the very end of the sender tightens down around a little stud that is glued into the sender... if you torque it too much, you'll break that glue and it'll sorta spin freely in there. I did that to mine. Still works fine, so

Oh yeah, about the splash guards, I'm not sure yet. Gonna see where it ends up after bumping up the lift. I may try to hack them up and see if I can get them on there. I'll let you know.

Thanks for the heads up on that. I did have one dumb question, the sender unit and the gauge each need their own ground wire right? So the only wire I actually need to feed through the firewall is the sender wire?

Love love love the rig Ripcord.

Did you think about getting a ScanGauge II to monitor transmission temps (along with other stuff) instead of getting an analog gauge?

Thanks. You have a great 4runner as well!
Yes, I have looked into the scanguage, and I will most likely end up getting one eventually. For now though, I just wanted a dedicated transmission gauge. And with all of the information the SGII can display, having a separate tranny gauge leaves good other stuff for the SGII to show me.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

With that gauge, you will have two wires coming through the firewall, one is the sending wire from the sender, the other is the ground wire from the sender.

In the picture below you can see how mine is setup. The wire on the right is the Sender wire... it is connected to the sender itself, and the nut that holds it on there is the one I was telling you to watch out for (re overtorquing it).

The wire on the left is the ground wire... you have to find a way to connect it to the body of the sender, I just sandwiched it beween the body of the sender and the brass T-block that I put together.

You'll have 3 more wires beyond that... a 12V hot for the gauge, I used a fused tap and pulled that connection off my fuse box... and a power/ground connection for the bulb. If you want the bulb to dim with your dash lighting, you need to connect into the ashtray light wiring. Tap the wires for the gauge lighting into the ashtray lights wiring, one on either side of the bulb. This will enable the gauge to dim w/the rest of your dash lights.

Check out my build thread, pages 4-6 for more info... page 6 has my wiring diagram.

 

[4-Ripcord]

Oh nice, didn't see that chart before, that helps a lot!

That is a crazy complicated diagram! Glad I'm only doing one gauge. I will be wiring in an additional power outlet on that add-a-fuse though. And the field monitor.. ugh not looking forward to wiring that thing.:redbrick:

 

[quicksilvr]

All the better reason to just get a SGII! Haha.

I have ATF, coolant temp, intake air temp and voltage showing for my 4 constant gauges on my SGII, and there really aren't any others that I need or want to see all the time.

 

[4-Ripcord]

When I get the SG, its gonne be MPG's, coolant temp, intake temp, distance to empty (on the trip computer setting).

Besides, who doesn't like a challenge?! :boxer:

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Not to mention the gauge by the shifter just looks sweet! :banana: