rockyMTNvagabond Build Thread

[rockyMTNvagabond]

I have been using this website for almost two years now. I can honestly say that i have become addicted to modifying my truck and have sourced countless ideas and for mods and general maintenance. I would try to specifically give credit to those individuals but i think that most people will know where the inspiration came from for many of the modifications that i have done.

My current line of work requires that i travel all over the country but I currently spend the majority of my time out west from Colorado to California. With all the traveling my needs for the 4runner are as a reliable work vehicle that will also allow me to explore whatever state that i happen to be in at the time.

I am an avid mountain biker and carry my bike with me every where i go.

Enough about me lets get on to the truck.

1999 Limited 4wd

This is the first picture i have of the truck after i bought it.
The guy that i purchased it from had already put in a home made snorkel and had removed the front bumper. It had 33's with no lift. Rubbing was a big issue for the first 6 months that i had it. It has 133k on the clock when i bought and the timing belt had been done at 100k. The only thing that i had done at this point was add bike trays to the roof rack and a hitch mounted rack to carry my bikes.

This is the first picture i have of the truck after i bought it.

This is how the truck currently sits.

Sundance, UT

Mods Include:

Interior
-Pioneer Double Din AVH-5500BHS
-Pioneer TSSWX2502 10-Inch Shallow-Mount Sub Woofer
-Wet Okole Seat Covers Black w/ Seat Heaters
-LED Conversion All Interior to Blue
-LED Dome Lights w/ added LED Strip Foot well Lights Front and Rear.
-Two LED Strips in Cargo area.
-Dashboard Cellphone Mount in old Clock Location
-Hardwired Garmin GPS
-Weathertech Floormats
-Wheelskins Steering Wheel Cover Black
-Ebay Center Armrest Cover Black

Exterior
-Addicted Off Road Winch Bumper
-Smittybuilt 8,000 lb Winch w/Custom install for control hookup in interior
-Snorkel
-Yakima Skybox
-Roof Mounted Shovel
-High-lift Jack
-Weathertech Bug Deflector
-OME 891 Rear Lift 3"
-Bilstien/Tundra Coils Front Lift 2.5" 2nd Perch
-B&M 70268 Trans Cooler Full Factory Bypass
-1.25" Wheel Spacers
-285/75r16 Goodyear Duratracs LR-E
-Satoshi Style Grill


Future Mods
-Rear Bumper with Swing out and spare tire carrier
-Skid Plates

Wish List
-Lockers Front and Rear
-Roof Mounted LED Light Bar

A Few Pics

Windrock, Tennessee

Winter Park, Colorado

Steamboat Springs

Elephant Hill Canyonlands, Utah

Moab

Hells Revenge, Moab

Grand Junction

California Coast

 

[GVL]

Your rig is looking really good - great job with the mods, it has a cool look.

I dig the photos too, you've definitely been to some awesome places. That campsite at Moab is epic - hope you brought your MTB along

 

[infamousRNR]

Can you give some explanation to why the snorkel is installed the way it is? It's really low....

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

Per the original post the snorkel was already on the truck when i bought it. I was looking for a 4wd Limited with lower miles and that just happened to be the best deal i could find. It also already had 33's so i bought it. If i had done the snorkel myself I would have used a kit. I looked into putting one on now but the hole that was cut in the fender will not work with any existing kits that i am aware of. To put a kit on i am looking at finding a new fender and matching desert dune paint which from my understanding is hard/expensive to do with the age of the paint. The other option would be to continue with PVC and try to find a bend that would mimic one of the pre-made kits. I am open to any suggestions. That is something that i want to address it just has not been a priority as other things seemed more important initially.

 

[Coopsdaddy]

Not that my opinion matters but I like the snorkel,I always thought the super high snorkel was kind of goofy.

 

[esoteric]

Nice looking truck and fantastic pics.

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

Quick Update

Had a few weeks off so i am working on a few projects that i have been wanting to get done for a while.

My limited fenders and rockers have seen better days. I had some deep scratches from overgrown trails. I debated heavily before making the decision to go ahead and use Rust Oleum bed liner on the flares and lower rocker panel cover. I am hoping that this will hold up better than regular paint. The other positive was that they will be easy to touch up if i ever need to. My initial impression is that i like how this turned out. I think that if you do not go to heavy with your coats you can some texture without it being overwhelming. Time will tell how well it holds up and if its going to be a pain to clean.

I did not want to paint the lower door limited trim with the bed liner so i just used black spay paint. I wanted to Flares to look separate from the rest of the cladding. So far I am not really liking this and am debating on repainting a different color or just continuing with bed liner. I am going to give it a few more days before i make a decision.

I had a few cans of Plasti Dip. Got bored in between coats on limited flares so i decided to try something with it. This is more of an experiment than anything else. I love the fact that i can just peel it off. My initial impression is that i like it when driving at night as it reduces glare off the hood. I also plan on getting a LED light bar mounted on the roof and my understanding is that those can produce heavy glare as well.

I had a few broken mounts on my old grill and it was barely hanging on. decided to build color matched grill with mesh insert. This was a fairly involved project. All you have to do is look at the many satoshi threads to get an idea of how do do it. I do not know if i will add a "Toyota or TRD" to the grill i kinda like the clean debadged look. I followed BigFishAllDay pretty much to a T. His method with zip ties works perfect.

Back in October i was in Arroyo Grande, CA at the Oceano Dunes. I ended up getting stuck pretty bad pretty far back from the coastline. It was my first time wheeling in deep sand and long story short poor line choice hesitating and loosing momentum resulted in one of the worst recoveries i have had to do. I tried to dig out but every shovel full was immediately refilled by the dune above. Pictures don't look to bad but i was not going anywhere.

Having virtually no options to winch out and having not heard or seen anyone for hours I decided pull the cable try to go diagonally back to a fence that was almost fully buried in the dune behind me. I knew this was going to be a bad idea but i was running out of options and decided to give it a try. crunch pop out:

Broken Cable

Bent Fairlead. Bottom left in pic.

Being that i was going to have to replace the cable and the fairlead i decided to go ahead and pull the entire bumper. I used primer and spray paint 1.5 years ago and it was not holding up well. Sent that to be sand blasted and powder coated. I also did not have bumper fillers under my headlights and it always looked bad to me. Rock Auto parts and some Desert Dune Matched paint left over from the new grill. My XRC8 winch was also faded and chalky so decided to paint it. Pretty happy with the face lift. Here is where i am at now with a refreshed front end.

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

Goodyear Duratrac 285/75r16

Finally made decision on tires. Ended up going with 285/75r16 Goodyear Duratracs Load Range E. I only have about 500 Miles on these so far but i am really happy with them. Super quite and seemingly good offroad. I have only been able to get them into snow so far but they preformed really well. I ended up dropping down to 17 psi and they cranked through about 2.5-3 feet of snow no problem.

 

[shootmymime]

wow man thats a sick build!

i could use some new tires and get off these street tires. thats the only thing holding my truck back right now.

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

Quick Trip to Moab

I had some time off and decided to swing into Moab about two weeks ago. There is no better place to go if you want to find out what parts of your rig need some attention. Needless to say the list of wants are quickly turning into needs. The biggest issue i have right now is with my Tundra/Bilstien front springs making contact with the spindle. Still do not know exactly what i am going to do but i may be going with aftermarket upper control arms. Other than that really need full skids and sliders to hit some of the tougher lines and not worry as much about breaking something and getting stuck on the trail. A few pics from the trip.

After this trip i can safely say that i am very happy with the Goodyear Duratracs. I have about 5k on them already and have hit enough different types of terrain to give them two thumbs up.

 

[skier46er]

What is your suspension and lift set up? It only looks like 3 or 4 inches.

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

What is your suspension and lift set up? It only looks like 3 or 4 inches.

Current setup is the following
-OME 891 Rear Lift 3"
-Bilstien/Tundra Coils Front Lift 2.5" 2nd Perch

I am having an issue with the front coils contacting the UCA. I am probably going to go with aftermarket UCA's to cure this problem. I have minimal tire contact with the body but it does happen when fully flexing. I am playing with the idea of a small body lift but have not made a decision yet. i really want to keep the COG as low as i can but an extra inch of clearance would be nice.

 

[shootmymime]

I am playing with the idea of a small body lift but have not made a decision yet.

remember im your man when it comes to that.

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

remember im your man when it comes to that.

If i get a body lift i will be hitting you up for sure. Anything i can do to support another forum member i will. Got a few other projects to knock out before i seriously look at a small body lift.

 

[psraff]

Unless I missed it.... You never said how you got out of that sand dune that broke your cable!!!! LOL

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

Unless I missed it.... You never said how you got out of that sand dune that broke your cable!!!! LOL

You bring up a great point. That is the only beach in California that i am aware of that will allow you to drive out onto the beach and into the dunes. There is only one tow truck company that is "authorized" by California State Parks to do recoveries in the Oceano dunes. I tried calling several other places and the all said the same thing. They were not authorized to do a recovery in the dunes. Long story short nothing that $375 dollars and 10 min of the tow truck drivers time wouldn't fix. Not sure how they got to be the only company that can do recoveries but they are are making a killing off people like me lol. I had no choice but to pay i had to be at work the next day and i did not see anyone where i was at to help.

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

Just wanted to post a bit of an update. I just rolled over 200,000 miles and am putting more on every month. I am amazed at how much travel this truck is keeping up with and grow fonder of it everyday.

I was able to get a few decent trips in. Back in May I had the chance to go to Yellowstone. I only had one day due to work but i jumped at the chance. Wish i had more time to check it out.

I was also able to spend a week in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. I did not get a chance to do any real wheeling but i got a bunch of mountain biking in and hit the highlight reel Crazy Horse, Mt Rushmore and Custer State Park.

Winter Park / Trestle Bike Park has been kicking my butt this year.

Over the 4th of July i crashed and broke my foot in two places on the bottom section of Rain Maker. I also busted my forearm open and had to get 12 stitches to sew it back up. The foot cost me about 7 weeks of riding but it finally healed up.

I went back to the Bike park 3 days ago and Winter Park put my bike frame to rest permanently. I'm still waiting the hear back if it will be warrantied.

 

[rockyMTNvagabond]

Truck Update

Over the summer i bought some Re-manufactured CV axles from CVJ in Denver. My boots were done. I was going to have a shop install them but the quotes i got were outrageous most people were asking around 400 in labor. I ended up doing it myself and it was not a hard job at all thanks to this great forum. I am hoping that these will hold up better. I got the silicone boot inner and the standard outer. They also put an O-ring on the largest part of the inner to prevent rubbing. I have been happy so far. I probably only have like 15-20k miles on them but so far they are like the day i put them in.

I also had these spacers mounted to the top of my front coil overs. I decided to remove them as I read that you should not run spacers with Bilstein's. It handles and rides better now. It also helped reduce my CV angle and my hope is that it will help the new boots last longer. I think that when you lift the front on these rigs you should just go high enough to clear your tires.

Next on my list is a Rear Bumper with a swing out. I think that i am going to go in the direction owyheerat did and get plans from Bandit Runner.

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-gen-t4rs/204519-big-shout-out-bandit-runner-bumper-design.html

I am going to try to find a place that can cut everything i need from his CAD file and try to find someone i can pay to help me weld it up. I want to learn how to weld so i am going to try using this as an opportunity to make that happen.

If anyone knows a good place to get the steel cut and can recommend someone that welds in Colorado let me know. I am shooting to get this done by the end of the year.

 

[Scramble]

Hey, hows the paint holding up on the flares?