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

[Ryance39]

A good buddy of mine, and now forum member picked up his new to him 3rd gen on Friday, so on Sunday, we took it out for a little shakedown in the snow.
It's a super clean 1 owner 2002.

 

[rightyouareken]

Twas a fun day, but I can't wait for the snow to melt so they open up more roads up there. Come on summer!

 

[Ryance39]

Savage Skids are here!
Overall I'm 8.5/10 happy with them.

Lead time was said to be 6-8 weeks, it actually took about 4 from time to order to delivery. Very happy about that.

They seemed to be packed pretty nicely too.

On initial inspection, they definitely had some scratching that seemed more than "surface" type scratches. a couple of them are fairly large/deep. That is about the only thing I wasn't happy about but hell, they're skid plates. They'll see a lot worse than that.

Install went very smooth and everything mounted up straight and simple.

For the money, I am VERY happy I went with these.
quick scrub with some degreaser to prep for paint.

Painted! I used Rustoleom high heat spray paint.

Installed

Hoping to hit the trails sometime soon and test them out.

 

[BrianSD_42]

The two trucks look great. With Roy being so "put a hole it" happy these days with his products it would be nice if he'd introduce an oil drain hole

 

[Ryance39]

Spent some time exploring the North Fork area of the Snoqualmie river with RightYouAreKen. We covered some pretty solid mileage but were ultimately stopped by a very large tree across the track, then hard muddy snow that was deeper than we were prepped to handle.

Couple photos to show for the effort.

 

[Ryance39]

Not a 4runner related update... but, I sold the 540i and picked up my dream car.
2001 BMW M5 Jet black, Nappa Heritage Leather, low miles, and great shape.
None 4Runner pics below...

As far as 4Runner updates, I'm just driving it! Timing belt/waterpump will get done this summer. Probably brakes too. It's been nothing but a joy in terms of driving and being trouble free lately.

 

[cblock406]

Can't wait to check this out in person!

 

[Joelzy]

Jealous! congrats on the e39, easily my fav bmw

missing my 540, left it in Texas with a friend for the time being but might sell it to fund another project.

 

[Ryance39]

On Saturday the wives did the baby shower thing and I was able to get out and do a little bit of exploring. I ran into something I have never run into in the 4runner though. After an hour or two of going up to about 6000 feet, we started our way down. By the time we got to the bottom, I was experiencing very bad brake fade, to the point where I had to pump the peddle at times. I was able to limp down in L gear but still very unnerving. Once to a safe spot, I inspected the brakes and fluid reservoir and It all looked fine. The brake fluid is definitely dirty so I'll be changing that but things seemed okay.

After a while, we drove on and the brakes were working great again. Once we reached our next stop I was standing near the 4runner and there was a "flapping"? or clicking/pressure relief type sound coming from the box near the brake fluid reservoir and booster. It appears to be a vacuum box, but I need to do a little investigation...

Couple photos

 

[Ryance39]

Small update.
After the exploring I did in the above post, I continued to have brake issues.
So I ordered up new pads and rotors and grabbed some new fluid.

I didn't take many photos because a brake job is a brake job but do have one photo of the finished product.

So far, I have been very happy with the results. It is amazing how much better the 4runner stops now.
after taking a closer look at the old pads and rotors it was clear that I definitely need brakes and probably should have done them months ago.

A couple of days later I was out driving some a guy pulled up next to me and said my tail lights and brake lights were not working. I popped over to Autozone, grabbed some new bulbs and installed them. Later that day, both headlight bulbs burnt out.

Not sure what the deal was but I have never had tail, brake, and headlights all go out in such a tight grouping... either way, new bulbs all around.

 

[Ryance39]

Spent some time earlier today exploring around the Evans Creek ORV. We intended to go to Mowich Lake, but the road is still closed so we ended up at Evans Creek.

I had been to Evans Creek years ago in my 95.5 Tacoma but that truck was a bit more offroady than the 4runner is at this point. I also had a buddy with me who has a stock 4runner.

We stuck to the easy "green trails" and only spent a couple hours out there but it was fun.
There was a spot on the way back that looked a little more challenging, and proved to be. It took my three attempts to get through but I did. It was much more slick and steep than the photos show but here they are.
Definitely going to look into the quick-disconnect sway bar links to try and get a little more articulation.

 

[Ryance39]

I saw another thread on the forums a while back and thought I might take a crack a fog light replacement and write up in case anyone wants to copy what I did.

I purchased two of these

Step 1: take your new lights and move the mounting bracket to one side.

Step 2: remove the factory fog and bracket. Look for the little bolt I am pointing at. It is on the inner side of each light. You will need an 8mm socket to get it.

Step 3: Take your now removed fog light back to your bench and start to strip the wire protection so you can cut the connector off.

Step 4: Connect the plug to the new light. Blue and red, Black and Black. After the photo I covered most the wiring in electric tape just to be careful.

Step 5: Mount and connect your new fog lights.

Step 6: Reach for refreshments...

Step 7: Test and adjust the lights for the best angle.

I'm hoping to get a night shot tonight, but we'll see. So far I am very happy with the result. The entire installation took about 15 minutes.

 

[rideexileex]

Please, please, please, re-do your wiring.

Twist locks like that are for romex wiring in buildings, not moving vehicles.

At the least, use wire crimps, but soldering wires is very easy and far more secure.

But otherwise, the lights are sweet!

 

[Ryance39]

Please, please, please, re-do your wiring.

Twist locks like that are for romex wiring in buildings, not moving vehicles.

At the least, use wire crimps, but soldering wires is very easy and far more secure.

But otherwise, the lights are sweet!

Like I said in the other thread, I'm not recommending someone use wire nuts over something else, but they do work.

The lights are very sweet. They need some adjusting but they fit the hole almost perfect, seem to be sturdy, and are bright.

 

[Ryance39]

Wire nuts have been removed, wires have been soldered and shrink wrapped. No pics but everyone can rest easy now.

I've been very happy with the lights, and they don't seem to bounce too much for only being mounted on one side.

 

[Ryance39]

Was browsing Craiglist and came across a guy selling a set of 4 hub centric spacers. He said they didn't fit his Tacoma, so I was a little skeptical but they were cheap. $60 for all four with nuts. So I figured I'd meet up with the guy.

I very quickly realized why they didn't fit his Tacoma. He had a 5 lug 2wd Tacoma and he had 6 lug 4x4 spacers, so I paid the man and went home to install. After a little research, it appears he bought the spacers from AllPro. They don't have the trail gear logo on them as they do on the website, but the part numbers on each are the same.

I elected to go with the installation method of red Loctite, 90#, drive, then check again with the wrench set to 85# to make sure nothing loosened up.

I definitely like how it looks. No rubbing as far as I can tell. Will be going with larger tires once these are toast.
Couple pics
Before:

After:

 

[Ryance39]

Trying to squeeze in as much fun as I can before the baby arrives RightYouAreKen, my father, and I headed out to Mowich lake for a myriad of reasons this morning. We left fairly early and arrived at the lake, which is also the Tolmie Peak trail head by 10am or so... IT WAS SO PACKED. I've spent a lot of time in the outdoors and I have never seen a hike/lake/recreation area so busy. Based on my odo, people were parking and walking to the lake/trail head nearly two miles from it. So, once that was bust we headed out to find more trails and photo opps.
My father and I primarily got into offroading because it allowed us to get unique landscape photos that other photographers don't have. Today's goal was to get some interesting shots of Mt. Rainier. In a general way Rainier is one of our best selling photos so any new view point or angle is always worth the trip. I also picked up a new camera recently... the 5D Mark IV. Coming from the 5D Mark III, and also having the 1DX for sports and 5DsR for large format, I was super excited to try to IV. In a word, it's incredible. The photos below are not the full high res but still... very happy with the money spent.

As for the 4runner. It's running well and the spacers don't seem to have affected the ride on or offroad. Happy about that. Still hoping to squeeze the WABDR in this summer but we'll see.
RightYouAreKen needs to order up his lift to go with the LBJ's he just bought...

 

[Ryance39]

Got tired of looking at the weathered and discolored rear license plate surround so I headed to the hardware store to pick up some spray paint to improve the look.

I went with "Dark Steel", I don't hate the results, but I was hoping for more of a gunmetal color. I'm going to give it a few days to see if it grow on me. I wanting to paint my wheels as they have started to chip in places and was hoping to use this color, but I definitely won't be using this on my wheels.

Like it or not, it does look better.
If anyone has a recommendation of a good spray paint that is gunmetal colored I'd love to hear it!
Before:

After:

 

[Ryance39]

Like most of us, I tend to check Craiglist fairly often for some of the things I have been looking for. I have been on the hunt for a 5th 5-star wheel to use as a full-size spare. Late last week I was able to pick up a set of 4 for $50 so I jumped on it.

I have been waiting for my current tires to wear down so I can upgrade to 285's and after looking at BrianSD's thread and the a thread from AdventureTaco I decided I should paint my new set of 5-stars before putting what will be 285/75/16's on them.

I wanted bronze and went with the recommended Duplicolor High-Performance wheel coating, Self-etching primer, and professional clear coat. Either the photos online don't represent the color accurately or I was duped because the wheels came out gold.

At first, I didn't love it but as the clear set up it darkened it enough that I think it will look pretty good on my Imperial Jade. If they end up looking horrible I'm in it $100 and can strip them down and repaint.

At this point, the wheels are done and I'm just waiting for Discount Tire to have a sale.
As I got them

After primer

After Clear

 

[Ryance39]

After finishing the gold, that was supposed to be bronze wheels I picked up I decided to make the move to 33' for my birthday.

After much deliberation and time bugging Cblock and RightYouAreKen with my tire indecision I elected to go with 285/75/16 KO2's.

Before making the move to 33's I had Hankook Dynapro ATM's and absolutely loved them. They are a great tire on and offroad, and performed really well in the snow.
So, I considered those, but on the other end of the spectrum I had Wrangler MTR/Kevlar on my Tundra and those tires were far and away the best MT I'd have used. I wasn't sure how the 4Runner would handle the big MT's but I also didn't want the so far less aggressive looking A/T's, so I landed on KO2's.

I don't really have an initial impression yet as I have only put a 10 or miles on them but it does look good.

When I had the tires installed on wheels I went to Discount Tire because I had always had good experiences with them. When the wheels and tires were getting torqued down the tech?(are the techs at DT?) came to get me and let me know the studs on my spacers had snapped on two wheels while they torqued them down.
Initially I was pretty upset. I don't like other people working on my cars but after seeing that they were using digital torque wrench and doing things right and the studs were still snapping I wasn't quite as mad.

They put the old wheels and tires on and I headed home with my new wheels and tires in the back of the 4Runner. I ordered a set of SpiderTrax spacers to replace my defunct AllPro spacers and they arrived the next day. After comparing the two it is clear the SpiderTrax are made much much better than the others.

Now, wheels and tires are on, fenders are trimmer and the pinch weld is hammered. We're in business.