RyanC's Supercharged Imperial Jade 99 Limited Build and Maintenance Thread

[Ryance39]

Man I love those front Raptor-style LEDs. How did you mount them?

Thanks!

Thanks!
I linked to the ones I bought on the first page.
I mounted them by litterally just wedging them in the grill from behind. They have little rubber grommets on them that are just bigger than the gaps in the grill. So from the back I pressed them in there and they have stayed. Probably the easiest mod ever.

 

[mikewilzn]

UPDATE!
Valve cover gaskets need doing, and I'm planing on doing them around Thanksgiving time. Wondering if I should be doing anything else while I'm in there. Also wondering if I should just do waterpump and timing belt as well. There is just over 70k on the motor since they were done last.

I'm in a similar boat. My passenger side valve cover has a slight leak and I'm really dreading doing that. My timing belt is also coming up on 100k miles and I was pondering whether or not it would make sense to just to both at the same time since I have to disconnect a lot of shit anyway.

 

[@jhcamacho]

That's a good looking whip.

 

[cblock406]

I'm in a similar boat. My passenger side valve cover has a slight leak and I'm really dreading doing that. My timing belt is also coming up on 100k miles and I was pondering whether or not it would make sense to just to both at the same time since I have to disconnect a lot of shit anyway.

They are two pretty separate jobs, I would break them out into two separate projects.

 

[Kmurt]

Truck looks great.

Which AVS bug deflector did you put on? Looking to get the same one for mine.

 

[Ryance39]

Truck looks great.

Which AVS bug deflector did you put on? Looking to get the same one for mine.

This one

 

[Ryance39]

Ordered valve cover gaskets, plugs and wires, and manifold gaskets.
Looking forward to getting the 4runner cleaned up a little.

Wife was offered a new position with her company, so now she will be riding the train and parking on the street during the week. Rather than parking our nice new X3 on a sketchy street, she'll be driving and parking the 4runner.

So the next dollars spent will be on making it "comfortable", it'll be a drastic change for her to go from the X3 to 4runner.

considering adding heated seats, or swapping the seats entirely. Does anyone know of any that are direct swaps? I can't weld, and don't to have to deal with finding someone to weld up a seat to the 4runner rails.

I would also consider covers or "re-leathering" them. I had Katzkin leather seats in my Tundra and loved them, but can't justify the money for the 4runner, are there any other leather covers worth the cost?

 

[128keaton]

Ordered valve cover gaskets, plugs and wires, and manifold gaskets.
Looking forward to getting the 4runner cleaned up a little.

Wife was offered a new position with her company, so now she will be riding the train and parking on the street during the week. Rather than parking our nice new X3 on a sketchy street, she'll be driving and parking the 4runner.

So the next dollars spent will be on making it "comfortable", it'll be a drastic change for her to go from the X3 to 4runner.

considering adding heated seats, or swapping the seats entirely. Does anyone know of any that are direct swaps? I can't weld, and don't to have to deal with finding someone to weld up a seat to the 4runner rails.

I would also consider covers or "re-leathering" them. I had Katzkin leather seats in my Tundra and loved them, but can't justify the money for the 4runner, are there any other leather covers worth the cost?

You apparently CAN add seat heaters from a limited 4Runner. And, you can order new seat skins from Toyota. Step in the right direction.

 

[Ryance39]

With the help of CBlock406 we knocked out valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, wires, and cleaned the throttle body.

I never thought to check it but we found something very interesting. The bolts holding my valve covers on were basically not holding them on. They were hardly finger tight.

So, were my gaskets actually bad? I don't know. Either way, they got changed and tightened down correctly.
The gaskets and plugs look as if they had been changed at one point, but it is never listed in my records.

One other thing we noticed is the way to tube hole gaskets go in. The ones we took out were put in flipped in comparison to the way Timmy puts them in based on the video. We installed them the way Timmy does and they do seem to be more snug that way. If you do this job, pay attention to that.

All in all the job went smoothly and took us about 4 hours and 8 beers.
Couple photos - everything looking good in there. No build up or sludge.

One clean, one dirty

 

[onemanarmy]

Ordered valve cover gaskets, plugs and wires, and manifold gaskets.
Looking forward to getting the 4runner cleaned up a little.

Wife was offered a new position with her company, so now she will be riding the train and parking on the street during the week. Rather than parking our nice new X3 on a sketchy street, she'll be driving and parking the 4runner.

So the next dollars spent will be on making it "comfortable", it'll be a drastic change for her to go from the X3 to 4runner.

considering adding heated seats, or swapping the seats entirely. Does anyone know of any that are direct swaps? I can't weld, and don't to have to deal with finding someone to weld up a seat to the 4runner rails.

I would also consider covers or "re-leathering" them. I had Katzkin leather seats in my Tundra and loved them, but can't justify the money for the 4runner, are there any other leather covers worth the cost?

I'd just go by a few upholstery shops and get prices. Then you can add aftermarket seat heaters when getting them recovered.

 

[cblock406]

Glad we got it done, now we just need to clean up that engine bay!

 

[Ryance39]

We finally got some snow in PNW and myself and a couple buddies went and took advantage of some snow driving and had some fun. Couple photos to share.

Cblock actually got his 4runner dirty too. Check out his build if you haven't already. He's extremely detailed.

Couple photos to share.

Not much else to share, 4runner seems to be running fine but has had some weird electrical issues. Nothing to crazy though.

 

[cblock406]

Had a blast yesterday!

 

[Ryance39]

With this time of year being fairly slow for me at work I took Friday off and flushed the transmission, cleaned up the engine bay, and washed the 4runner for the first time in a while...

The trans fluid that came out was still very clean! Which I was happy about, but by my rough estimate it was about a qt short. I haven't had to drive yet since I did it, so we'll see if there is any difference.
Couple photos...
Before

After

After a wash!

 

[Ryance39]

The factory motorized antenna finally totally fell apart. Was going down the road, hit a big bump and had an antenna hanging on the pass front quarter panel.

So I dove in. I didn't take any photos because we're in middle of packing to close on a new house at the end of the month so I was outside working in the rain.

New house has an oversized three car garage :rockon::rockon::rockon:

Couple tips for those who are going to do the Tacoma whip mod:
- After you pull down the glovebox, there is a plastic piece that creates the "top" side of the glove box, there are three 10mm bolts, if you remove that plastic piece you have much more room to work, so do that.

- I have seen a lot of folks use fishing line tied to the old antenna wire so they can pull the new one back through. I tried that, andddd it broke. It was even 20lb test. So what I did instead was tie a small knot in some heavy cordage, and ziptie it to the old wire. That worked like a charm.

- I can only speak for the 99 limiteds, but haven't seen this mentioned in any other write ups. There are 4 places where the factory antenna wire is "pinched" into place with a little clip.
One just to the right of the top vents
Two on the driver side of the airbag
Three on the pass side of the airbag(this is where removing that plastic piece comes in handy...
Four, pass side of the airbag about 3-4 inches right of that as the wire starts to turn down towards the fender.

If you do not unclip those, no matter how hard you pull, you will never get the wire out.

I struggled to get the wire and cordage all the way out through the fender so I unscrewed the footwell trim and single bolt that holds the right side of the dash, glove box, and lower trim piece into place.
With that I could wedge a trim removal tool between the doorframe and the dash and snip the ziptie leaving the cordage in place but allowing me to pull the antenna wire out through the fender.
I then started feeding the new antenna wire through the fender until I could see it where the cordage was. I then grabbed a long set of plier pulled both the wire and cordage through the bottom of the glovebox, zip-tied it and pulled it through pretty much without issue.

Only pic I took...

 

[cblock406]

Looks good, that thing is tall!

 

[johnbyebye]

With this time of year being fairly slow for me at work I took Friday off and flushed the transmission, cleaned up the engine bay, and washed the 4runner for the first time in a while...

The trans fluid that came out was still very clean! Which I was happy about, but by my rough estimate it was about a qt short. I haven't had to drive yet since I did it, so we'll see if there is any difference.
Couple photos...

Looking good man!

 

[T4topher]

Awesome rig bro.

 

[Ryance39]

not much has been done to the 4Runner lately.

Wife and I just sold the house I owned from before we were married and moved into what very well could be our forever home. We're also now expecting our first child! :horn:

The day after the movers moved all our stuff in, Washington state got hit with Snowmagedin... leaving us with 12 inches of snow in one night and another 3-5 inches over the next day or two. What a way to move in.

I also had to travel on business from Monday morning until late Thursday night, so now that I have had a couple days to settle in and start to work on the garage.

For the first time since I have owned it the 4Runner, it'll get to stay in the garage with the other toys.

obligatory snow pic

Three of four in the garage! (fourth in my parents garage) with plenty of room to work on each.

I have noticed my key fob starting to not always lock/unlock, is it as simple as changing the battery or do these fobs just "die?" I think I have read posts about them just dying after some time.

 

[Ryance39]

Small update/photo share.
Last week I ordered the Savage Offroad front skid plate kit. Hoping to get them sooner than later but I get it's a process. Looking forward to having some real protection up front. This spring and summer should bring more wheeling than the last as a buddy of mine just went and got himself a 3rd gen to wheel and explore with.

Other car related shares(incase anyone is interested) -
I took Cblock and RightYouAreKen for a quick ride in the Benz last weekend. The current project on that car is resound deadening the drivers floor and trying to workout the issues with the Hydrak trans system.

I've started really driving my e39. figured it has sat long enough soooo heres to driving the weekender! I am considering selling though.

Changed the oil on our X3 for the first time since buying it back in May of last year... we don't drive much in this house...only about 6000 miles on it since buying it.

Sounding like I may get some time this weekend to get out and get the 4runner dirty...Hopefully more pics to come!