Sniv's Custom Long Travel Build

[snivilous]

Replaced the lower radiator hose and drove it around a little. It feels insanely tall compared to my girlfriend's Santa Fe I've been driving for the past 2 months. Ordered another exhaust gasket from O'reilly that will hopefully fit, besides having a nice rumble at idle the truck smells bad, has exhaust coming out the wheel well, and absolutely roars over 1500rpm. I haven't checked the compression yet still, but the engine feels just like before. I haven't gotten on the gas really, I took it up to 3000rpm once for a second and that was it. I haven't read about a break in period, but I'm gonna take it easy for a bit, at least until I get the exhaust done. Here's a photo in front of campus just to prove that she actually drove a few miles today! Thanks to everyone who has followed and given advice and helped along the way! It's been an agonizing past few weeks. I really need to break out of this pattern of the truck having a catastrophic failure once a year...

 

[Unner]

Glad to see it running! Now get some protection underneath there!

 

[snivilous]

Long story short, my head gaskets are reversed. I ordered new HGs and head bolts to show up tomorrow at O'reilly. The plan is to rebuild the top end, hopefully, in the next 48 hours. All of this is driven by my desire to go to KOH for the first time. And because changing head gaskets twice in a week isn't fun enough, it started snowing a ton tonight. Wish me luck.

 

[JBurt]

Damn. You have my sympathies and respect. Good luck.

 

[snivilous]

Well I got a bit done today, not as much as I was hoping. I ended up waiting on O'reilly to get the new gaskets delivered, and then it took me awhile to clean the block and figure out how to stop all the oil in the heads from leaking out every time I tried installing them. So far I think the two most infuriating things I've ever had to do on this truck is installing the heads and keeping the pain in the ass wiring harness out of the way, followed closely by unbolting the cam pulleys.

At least her current parking spot is slightly under a tree and has been plowed recently...

"Old" head gaskets. If you look at the bottom right alignment pin on the left side, there's two water jacket pass throughs that are just against the block. If you were to rotate that gasket to the other side, the two pass throughs would straddle the top left alignment pin for the right side.

Closer view of the wrong water jacket pass through location.

New gaskets in, they're labeled which is nice, and I triple checked and compared them to the old gaskets.

As of now the heads are bolted in and that's about it. It should go back together pretty fast, especially since I already have the AC unbolted to loosen the timing belt tensioner. The heads were pissing me off so much I called it a night. I was hoping to get it all done today, but oh well. It should be an easy couple of hours to put it back together either tomorrow or Tuesday.

 

[Swamp Ape]

Man, what a thread. I started reading to see what you did with the custom LT, then I got sidetracked with the stories of taking misc. ladies wheeling with you, then you came back to the LT project, which I have to commend you for. Now you are in the midst of fixing another near catastrophic event. Most people would have just walked away, but you persevered. Good work, and it makes for a great read. I need a sticker for my 3rd Gen that says, "What Would Snivilous Do?"

 

[snivilous]

Man, what a thread. I started reading to see what you did with the custom LT, then I got sidetracked with the stories of taking misc. ladies wheeling with you, then you came back to the LT project, which I have to commend you for. Now you are in the midst of fixing another near catastrophic event. Most people would have just walked away, but you persevered. Good work, and it makes for a great read. I need a sticker for my 3rd Gen that says, "What Would Snivilous Do?"

Hahaha thanks man! I should really go through my build sometime since I forget so many of the adventures I've been on, but they always get cataloged here. I appreciate the words :thumb3:

 

[snivilous]

Okay, another issue. Maybe eventually I'll delve into everything I'm doing, but I'm spending lots of time and don't feel like posting it all on here during my continuous diagnostic search.

I finished the new head gaskets and new head bolts, took about 16 hours to do all of it. The engine is running (mostly) fine. No overheating thank god. I went for two drives, a test drive around town, and then what was supposed to be a short wheeling trip.

Now here is the issue that I need help with:

I hit a little bump. My dash turned off, no gauges, dash lights, no climate controls, no radio, no gauge backlight. The engine kept running. I could drive, I could shift, etc. Now the first issue: my oil light had begun flickering around idle, which I had read from [MENTION=59542]Singtoe[/MENTION] might be the oil sender or something getting clogged, since it goes away once revved up a little. But the engine also seemed to be bogging down and stalling out, I don't know if this is a separate issue or are related.

ISSUE 1: Oil light flickering at idle, engine potentially stalls in idle/reverse.

Next thing the engine stalls, and I go to crank it and nothing. I've come to the conclusion, that something has cut power to the inside of the runner, and because of that it won't let the ignition cylinder send a signal to the starter--I don't think the issue is the starter, I think fixing power to the cab will fix starting it.

All fuses are good, the two grounds I pulled (plenum/firewall) during the rebuild are solid, there's no visible hoses/plugs/wires that are shorted, cut, disconnected, etc. I checked the fusebox power wire, it had a good connection on the fusebox side and I moved it around to double check it had a good connection on the battery side. I unplugged the battery for awhile to try and reset everything. I unbolted all the battery connections and bolted them back up--the battery is like 5 days old too, so totally healthy and no corrosion. I checked the wire bundle going to the firewall near the brake booster and it looked fine.

ISSUE 2: No power to entire dash.

I got back after spending like 4 hours on the trail, which is a great story. I'll look all over the truck tomorrow in the sunlight, but nothing obvious has shown up yet, and I have no idea where to look either and I can't find really anything like I have from anyone else. If anyone has obvious, or extreme ideas, please share. I've checked all the main shit, but maybe something easy is being missed.
[MENTION=57546]4-Ripcord[/MENTION]
[MENTION=75445]4Running Daily[/MENTION]
[MENTION=25058]ChildrenOfBodom[/MENTION]
[MENTION=100116]D Farms[/MENTION]

 

[D Farms]

I would heavily inspect the firewall pinch weld area. when i was tubbing mine i accidentally started a small fire inside which melted quite a few wires together. I suspect you may have done something similar since you removed so much material.

 

[snivilous]

I've concluded I have no power to the inside fuse box behind the kick panel. I haven't grabbed a voltmeter yet, but nothing those fuses control is working. Any ideas as to where to look for a power or ground wire not hooked up, or a plug undone, whatever? I'm gonna look around on the inside, like David said I cut a lot during the firewall tub. It would seem weird that if I hit a wire it would only now start acting up, but who knows since this whole thing seems weird.

Does anyone know if the fuse box power wires run anywhere near the engine and might've gotten messed with during the rebuild?

 

[snivilous]

Spent all day working through the electrical shit. Seems to be my ignition switch is fried. Get that replaced in the next few days, and a new oil filter should fix the low oil pressure at idle. Hopefully that's the end of the trouble shooting, I have 6 days to make her reliable!

 

[snivilous]

**** me, the 4Runner's electrical system is doing everything it can to ruin itself.

So my gauges and everything inside the truck went out, long story short the ALT fuse was blown. I still can't figure out how it's bad by looking at it, but it doesn't have continuity. The fact it's not visibly blown is why I overlooked it and ended up tearing through the rest of the truck. What really sucks is I've carried spare alternator fuses with me ever since I did the LT, since I blew two fuses because the alternator was so close to my shock towers and rubbing (until I got a shorter belt for the alternator). So when I got stranded on the trail a few days ago, I had everything I needed to fix the job in 10 minutes and didn't realize it.

After fixing that issue, I drove around and everything was great and then my battery started to die--alternator. I spent all day today troubleshooting it, turns out the J1/J2 plug (the one under the engine bay fuse box) for some reason won't transmit power consistently. If I unplug it and plug it back together the alternator is fine, give it 20 minutes and a bump or two and for some reason the red wire going to the alternator won't get power through that plug anymore. Tomorrow I'll probably just cut the plug out and put some quick disconnect crimp fittings on and tape it all up.

Finally, another issue that popped up today, is the rear wiper doesn't work and the electric locks don't work if the ignition isn't on--common consensus online seems to be the MPX fuse is blown which I haven't checked yet.

In conclusion, the engine has had zero issues since I put it back together. I was getting a flickering oil light but that was fixed with a new filter. Now all this other electrical shit has come about, which I have slowly been moving through. Finally today I got to the point, since about 8 weeks ago, where the truck felt solid and with a few minor fixes should be reliable again! As of now I seem to be ahead of the issues, and on schedule to head to KOH this week

 

[snivilous]

I got back from King of the Hammers today. I realized I had less than an hour on the truck since fixing everything, and I hadn't even driven it outside of city limits prior to driving to California. The drive is about 750 miles one way, so 1500 miles + offroading before any real check outs! The runner did great though! I had a corner light fall out, one of my side LED bars rattled loose (I grabbed it though), and then on the way home in the last 50 miles the heater blend valve seemed to stop working. I got super freaked out and thought I was overheating or had lost coolant, but I just seem to have no heat higher than medium. All things considering the truck did great!

This was my first time to KOH and I met my parents in Barstow Wednesday night. Super awesome event that everyone should go to at least once. On the drive home we didn't go through Hammertown since I had read that it gets chaotic with everyone leaving, so we went to the north side of the race course that the Ultra4s ran and followed it aways and then got on a road that went down to the highway. It was cool to say I ran part of the race course. Nothing gnarly, but in one of the whoop sections (not super deep whoops, maybe 6-8" deep) the runner GPSed at 49mph. At speed the runner seems to do really good actually, despite how poorly the rear end behaves. It was evident since in 2WD we couldn't go faster but the ride was pretty good considering I've never been in legitimate whoops or at that speed, I think the rear axle was bouncing a lot which at speed kept it from bumping the truck very hard, but couldn't put the power down. In one of the straight sections where it smoothed out we hit 62mph and then hit a big dip where another road intersected the one we were on. We hit really hard and I'm thankful for having hydro bumps on all four corners! Anyways, runner did great in the whoops for how it's setup, did some rock crawling, and ultimately drove to CA and back without issue a week after getting the engine going!

 

[snivilous]

To start off, I screwed around with the climate controls today but the truck seemed to be pumping heat out. [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] and I took a ride and then the heat stopped again, we figured out the heater valve just isn't actuating all the time. Not sure if it's a side effect of going fast and everything getting rattled, but will have to tear into the truck a little more to find why the wire doesn't always want to get pulled. For the rest of the day it was totally fine though so not sure what's up...

Then tonight my girlfriend and I went up one of the local canyons since we were bored and I wanted to take some photos.

We almost made it to the rock quarry where I've taken pictures before with the waterfalls, but not quite. After a few photos I realized there had been a mini-avalanche on the north side of the canyon (you can see it in the last photo). We would be chugging fine and then hit super soft powdery snow and just sink into it, even though we were running about 4psi. It seems as though the little avalanche flooded the trail with the powder we were hitting and couldn't make it through. Granted we didn't air down further or try more than a few times, but this was the first time I've sunk so deep at such low pressure where I essentially get high centered a foot in. As you can see most of the tires would get buried and I was sinking up to the sliders.

Anyways, couple photos and nothing else really. It's nice to get a little snow wheeling in, maybe we'll go on a bigger adventure this weekend.

 

[JBurt]

Anyways, couple photos and nothing else really. It's nice to get a little snow wheeling in, maybe we'll go on a bigger adventure this weekend.

Awesome photos and I'm glad you've had a 4runner hassle free week. Heat is a small problem compared to what you've been doing.

I would kill to see some snow. It's in the high 80's here this week. WTF?

 

[snivilous]

I've been wheeling a ton lately. Last weekend I did a local trail with some friends and ran into this guy with a big Blazer on 37s and all armored, became friends with him and it turns out he goes wheeling a ton so finally I have someone who's willing to go out multiple times a week like I always do. Then my friend who had the XJ that I've wheeled with for years, he sold his full size pickup and ended up buying this sweet Taco two days ago. We had to wire in an ARB compressor to actuate the lockers so didn't go wheeling with it until yesterday. Wagoneer 44 in front, 5" of lift, bumpers front and rear, 37s, dual locked, etc. it's pretty beast and it's cool that he has a yota and one that's familiar to mine (though it's a 95, so it's about as different as possible while still being kinda similar).

Here are some photos from last night, the couple other photos I've taken recently I didn't like much, but last night I was on target getting everything perfect I think.

Airing down at the entrance to the canyon.

The runner continues to prove that low air pressure is superior to lockers. The blazer was running 8psi and had a rear locker and he had to haul ass to get up this one little hill, and the taco couldn't even make it at 10psi being dual locked and hauling ass. I was in front and literally crawled up it at 1500rpm at 2psi and open diffs. I'm glad I went for the beadlocks over getting lockers. Hopefully I'll get lockers soon, but there's been rare circumstances where I would even need them since I have so much traction to begin with it's hard to get tires to start slipping. Pretty cool I think.

This was as far up this one loop as we went since I had to pull my friends little white pickup, the Blazer made it, and the Taco couldn't so we turned around.

Headed up a trail going straight up this hill side. Taco and the mini truck couldn't make it to the dry part, Blazer took a long ass time but finally made it and then caught up with me when I was chilling at the top. I was nervous running such low pressure in rocks but everything worked out.

Top part getting onto the ridge was sketchy since it went from dry to snowy, and it's super steep and normally has loose rocks and dirt. I took my time and went slow and tried to hop from rocky area to rocky area and kept an eye on my tires to make sure they were gripping well. Made it to the top like a boss.

Blazer eventually made it up with his coolant boiling out everywhere.

Since the two trucks had turned around at the bottom we headed back down which was uneventful. It's nice to go on trips where no one in the group breaks anything And I'm glad I now have my old wheeling partner back and have found a new guy to wheel with a bunch.

 

[t-man]

I've been wheeling a ton lately. Last weekend I did a local trail with some friends and ran into this guy with a big Blazer on 37s and all armored, became friends with him and it turns out he goes wheeling a ton so finally I have someone who's willing to go out multiple times a week like I always do. Then my friend who had the XJ that I've wheeled with for years, he sold his full size pickup and ended up buying this sweet Taco two days ago. We had to wire in an ARB compressor to actuate the lockers so didn't go wheeling with it until yesterday. Wagoneer 44 in front, 5" of lift, bumpers front and rear, 37s, dual locked, etc. it's pretty beast and it's cool that he has a yota and one that's familiar to mine (though it's a 95, so it's about as different as possible while still being kinda similar).

Here are some photos from last night, the couple other photos I've taken recently I didn't like much, but last night I was on target getting everything perfect I think.

Airing down at the entrance to the canyon.

The runner continues to prove that low air pressure is superior to lockers. The blazer was running 8psi and had a rear locker and he had to haul ass to get up this one little hill, and the taco couldn't even make it at 10psi being dual locked and hauling ass. I was in front and literally crawled up it at 1500rpm at 2psi and open diffs. I'm glad I went for the beadlocks over getting lockers. Hopefully I'll get lockers soon, but there's been rare circumstances where I would even need them since I have so much traction to begin with it's hard to get tires to start slipping. Pretty cool I think.

This was as far up this one loop as we went since I had to pull my friends little white pickup, the Blazer made it, and the Taco couldn't so we turned around.

Headed up a trail going straight up this hill side. Taco and the mini truck couldn't make it to the dry part, Blazer took a long ass time but finally made it and then caught up with me when I was chilling at the top. I was nervous running such low pressure in rocks but everything worked out.

Top part getting onto the ridge was sketchy since it went from dry to snowy, and it's super steep and normally has loose rocks and dirt. I took my time and went slow and tried to hop from rocky area to rocky area and kept an eye on my tires to make sure they were gripping well. Made it to the top like a boss.

Blazer eventually made it up with his coolant boiling out everywhere.

Since the two trucks had turned around at the bottom we headed back down which was uneventful. It's nice to go on trips where no one in the group breaks anything And I'm glad I now have my old wheeling partner back and have found a new guy to wheel with a bunch.

Man I need some wheeling buddies so bad! Love the rig man! Huuuge thumbs up!

 

[snivilous]

Been wheeling every day for a week and a half now! It's nice to have a girlfriend who enjoys it, and having my friends have rigs again certainly helps.

Did a small trail today with the SAS Taco. Snow was pretty gnarly at 4psi, there was a crust and then super powdery underneath so I couldn't get much traction plus having to be a mini ice breaker didn't help, but in the end we made it. At one point I blew my alternator fuse (again). Luckily I knew this time it was the alternator fuse so we didn't get stranded again, but again it's visually fine... The radio kept shutting off and then finally it went out. The alternator itself isn't rubbing on anything, and it has nothing to do with the suspension catching anything, it seems to be that snow is getting thrown up at is shorting something out somewhere... I'm kinda debating running the truck and pouring water systematically around to figure out what the hell is shorting it so rarely. Anyways, the runner is doing awesome and I'm planning on going on a 9 day road trip for spring break in March and go to the Mint 400!

 

[4everun22]

soo when are you going to sell your long travel kits? i need one

 

[shootmymime]

soo when are you going to sell your long travel kits? i need one

Seriously!!!!