stockwell45's 97 4Runner Build Up Thread

[Stockwell45]

I'd be up for a trip down to Montana if your passport isn't ready. Sneaking across probably will result in something bad.... hahah

I live 40mins north of the Sweetgrass/Coutts border crossing. So I'm about 3.5 hours south for me to be in Whitefish Montana. Wild Bills ORV just happens to be down that way as well!

Nice...didn't realize you were so close. I'm definitely down for some wheeling, and as much as I love the challenging stuff I'm not sure how my 4runner will handle it with my whole life loaded in the back. Not much travel in the back with my rear springs sagging, but I'll give it a try! I really wanna get to some places with a good view. I'll be getting in touch with you when I get up to that area for sure though!

feel free to leave out OR and WA on your itinerary... its cool man... actually its probably for the best as id have to go out and buy a tent... safe travels man enjoy your trip!:thumb3:

Hey man, don't you worry. I'll be heading up there sooner or later, maybe next fall or maybe in the spring, who knows. You have that much time to get a tent!

 

[TCMach]

Ill be back down there in mid may till August. Not much to do but there is Little Sahara (big thing of sand dunes) and hogans offroad park (all kinds of crap). Hogans is sweet I went there last June. YouTube "Disney OK offroading" or for any of these trails: viagara, pinball hill, rollover hill. It'll give you a pretty good idea of what's there. There's some pics in my build thread somewhere too.
Also it'd be a bit out of your way but the Superlift ORV park is semi close in Arkansas. I know ARKRWLR goes out there every once in a while and I've been dying to go.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Thanks guys, hopefully I'll be putting my 4Runner and tent to good use for a while.

Road trip has begun. For the next 4 or 5 months, I'll be cruising around the western U.S. checking out some of this beautiful country. The 4Runner with all my stuff weighs 5700 pounds! My LC coils don't like it too much, and the thing has about as much power as a volkswagen van on hills.

Right now I'm sitting in Utah at my parents house waiting for this storm to pass. On sunday I'll be heading over the rockies into Denver, then onto Cheyenne and into Montana. Later after Christmas I'll probably head down through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and maybe Arkansas. Maybe I'll be seeing some of you out there on the road!

VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRY NICE!!! I got your PM, and I'll give you a ring here soon so you've got my contact info. Momma & Baby are getting it figured out more and more every day so by the time you come through NM I'll probably be able to steal an afternoon to meet up. Hopefully we can work it out for one of my days off.

Sounds like you're going to have an epic trip man, and I'm super jealous. Enjoy every minute of your adventure, be safe, and let the road take you where it will. GODSPEED!

 

[Stockwell45]

VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRY NICE!!! I got your PM, and I'll give you a ring here soon so you've got my contact info. Momma & Baby are getting it figured out more and more every day so by the time you come through NM I'll probably be able to steal an afternoon to meet up. Hopefully we can work it out for one of my days off.

Sounds like you're going to have an epic trip man, and I'm super jealous. Enjoy every minute of your adventure, be safe, and let the road take you where it will. GODSPEED!

Thanks man, I'm pretty stoked. Just wish there was a whole gang of us that could convoy around, that would be pretty sweet.

And back when I originally planned this trip and let you know, I didn't realize you were a father to be. So if you arn't able to meet up I definitely understand. But I'll still plan on it!

 

[fluffeh]

Been looking over this build for a few days now, and I gotta say I love every inch of your build. The color, the bumpers, the tent. I'm also insanely jealous of this trip. Have a good time and take it all in!

 

[Stockwell45]

Thanks! I've loved every minute of building it up, and this trip is definitely one of the best ways I can think of to enjoy all that work.

 

[SeattleCyclist]

Hello OP,

I was getting ideas on the mounts for RTTs and yours maybe a good option because it will have the lowest profile. I wanted to know where you bought the Defender Rack Mounts. Also, the last picture looked like the brackets are bent, whereas the photo before it looks they where in 90 degree angle.

Yesterday I drove to Santa Cruz to pick up my new Tepui Kukenam rooftop tent. I'm pretty stoked on it, now I won't have to worry about where to sleep on my upcoming trip.

It's mounted to Defender rack mounts, which makes it sit really close to the roof as you can see, which is nice.

Here are the mounts. Others have said only 4 will do the job, But obviously they must weigh 100 pounds because the mounts don't like my 185 pound self. I'm ordering 6 more, so there will be 3 more on each side before I actually try to stay overnight in it.

So far I'm really happy with it, I don't even know it's up there on the highway except for my gas mileage going down a bit.

 

[Stockwell45]

Hello OP,

I was getting ideas on the mounts for RTTs and yours maybe a good option because it will have the lowest profile. I wanted to know where you bought the Defender Rack Mounts. Also, the last picture looked like the brackets are bent, whereas the photo before it looks they where in 90 degree angle.

The mounts are for a Defender roof rack, I ordered mine through 4wheel parts. The part number for 4 mounts are DS2-4. I'm guessing the part number for 8 would be DS2-8. If you call 4wheel parts to order them, just tell them you want to order the Defender rack mounts for a 4runner, and tell them you want 8 and they should do all the ordering work for you.

And you are correct, in one of the pics the mounts are bent badly. This is because originally I only ordered 4 mounts, 2 for each side. This was not enough to support the tent with me in it, and the mounts bent. I then ordered 4 more mounts so I would have 4 on each side. After bending the old mounts back into shape, they hold up beautifully now. I would not go less than 8 mounts.

These mounts definitely do have the lowest profile than any other I have seen for a RTT. The one downside is it is a complete PITA to install, because you only have a few inches to work with between the bottom of the tent and the roof. Trying to install the nuts in that space to bolt down the tent is really irritating. Hope this helps you out!

 

[Stockwell45]

Figured I'd give a bit of an update. Not much has been going on, except racking up the miles big time from driving to Sacramento a bunch for interviews and testing.

She's got a misfire in cyl #3, and I hardly have any power above 3k rpm's, only sputtering. All I got is low end power so I'll have to address that soon.

My front LCA bushings were completely shot, so instead of dealing with putting in new poly or factory bushings I got some complete used LCA's for cheap. After removing the old ones and inspecting the bushings, there was no question where my hard pull came from when braking. There was hardly any bushing left in there, the metal sleeve was free to slop around in it's housing. Replaced with the new LCA's and it rides nice and straight. Although my front wheel bearing's are shot and vibrate badly at about 50 mph, so I'll be replacing those with some used spindles with good bearings. My spindles are tweaked anyway from a bad night at pismo, so I'll kill two birds with one stone on that one.

No shots of the bad bushings, but here's one of everything torn down.

I also put new Herculiner on my sliders. They haven't been touched up in about 2 years, and all the wheeling and scraping on rocks made bare metal show through and rust start.

Before

After

I've also been trying to figure out how to make my RR DIFF light on my dash come on with my Elocker switch, but so far no luck. I know 4running daily figured it out, but my switch must be wired way differently. I've even gone as far as disassembling the switch and hooking a wire onto the positive lead of the little switch light, but no luck. It's the stupidest thing ever but it's bugging the hell out of me.

In other news, I rearranged stuff in the shop so there's much more room. Could fit at least 4 vehicles in there now, and is great just for the extra room for working.

Yeah a lame update I know, but I don't have much going on in the winter.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Matt, I can probably help you figure out how to get that indicator on the dash lit up. You did a retrofit on your truck right? If you have any type of wiring diagram for your install, you should take a picture of it and PM it to me, and we'll get you squared away.

How many miles were on your replacement LCA's? I'm going to have to do that job on my '97 here pretty soon and I'm debating buying new aftermarket arms for $70/each (including bushings), or looking for a used OEM set.

Nice shop, btw. Is that at your house?

 

[SparkEE]

I've also been trying to figure out how to make my RR DIFF light on my dash come on with my Elocker switch, but so far no luck. I know 4running daily figured it out, but my switch must be wired way differently. I've even gone as far as disassembling the switch and hooking a wire onto the positive lead of the little switch light, but no luck. It's the stupidest thing ever but it's bugging the hell out of me.

Have you tried switching the negative side of the lamp? Toyota in their circuits are pretty high on taking 12v to one side and switching the negative...

And the lamp is good? Sometimes these things are painfully simple.

 

[Stockwell45]

Matt, I can probably help you figure out how to get that indicator on the dash lit up. You did a retrofit on your truck right? If you have any type of wiring diagram for your install, you should take a picture of it and PM it to me, and we'll get you squared away.

How many miles were on your replacement LCA's? I'm going to have to do that job on my '97 here pretty soon and I'm debating buying new aftermarket arms for $70/each (including bushings), or looking for a used OEM set.

Nice shop, btw. Is that at your house?

I wired mine exactly how ARKRWLR wired his, I used this as a guide.

http://www.yotatech.com/f2/how-diy-retrofit-elocker-wiring-235219/

I know the dash light uses the ground as the switch, so I've ran a relay to ground it out when the locker switch is activated. Except none of the leads of the switch are hot only when the locker is enabled. So I'm stumped. But your definitely better at this stuff than I am!

I have no idea how many miles are on the LCA's, I bought them from deathcouger, who probably got them from a wrecked rig at his salvage yard. All I know is the bushings practically look new, and feel new as well. I've never heard of anyone's feedback who has or had aftermarket LCA's, so I just decided to go OEM. I'm happy with them though!

Yeah, happy to say that's our shop. This is the house I grew up in, my brother and I now rent it from our parents who live in Utah. My dad built the shop for his construction business, but it works great now for vehicles.

Have you tried switching the negative side of the lamp? Toyota in their circuits are pretty high on taking 12v to one side and switching the negative...

And the lamp is good? Sometimes these things are painfully simple.

The lamp is good. Switching it is easy, like you said, by grounding out negative. The problem is trying to get my relay to work by grounding out the light when my locker switch is on. It seems so easy, but no luck so far.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

I know the dash light uses the ground as the switch, so I've ran a relay to ground it out when the locker switch is activated. Except none of the leads of the switch are hot only when the locker is enabled. So I'm stumped. But your definitely better at this stuff than I am!

You have a PM, sir! You're also very lucky to have a workshop that nice. I do all my work in a 2 car garage, so I can't complain, but I'd love to have a shop that big. Thanks for the reply on the LCA's.

 

[Stockwell45]

Finally figured out my RR DIFF light situation. I was having so many problems with it for some reason, I didn't know one little bulb could give me such a headache. Sometime's it wouldn't get power at all, sometimes it wouldn't ground out all the way and be really dim, and one time the light would come on when the rig was off, and off again when the rig was on. Super annoying.

Huge props to [MENTION=44220]BigFishAllDay[/MENTION] for helping me out with his electrical knowhow. He even talked to me on the phone at 1am to try to work me through it. Even though it's just a dumb light and I really don't need it, it's pretty cool that he took the time to help someone out that he's never met. Thanks again bud!

My problem was, like I said before, the locker was wired straight to the battery. For some reason it would ground only when the rig was off, and my light would come on. To fix this, I stole BFAD's idea of using an "add a circuit" to wire my switches hot lead to the fuse box under the dash. I just plug this into the 4wd fuse location, since it's only hot when the ignition is on. No more lights on when the rig is off!

I'll be using these in the future, I had no idea they existed.

2 lights on now for the locker, instead of just the one on the switch. Now if I hit the switch with my knee again and the locker comes on, I'll actually know about it because it's hard for me to see just the switch light in the middle of the day.

I can finally focus on other mods, now that this has finally been resolved.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Right on, Matt! Glad to see you got the light working like you wanted. Thanks for the shoutout, and you're welcome anytime. I'm glad I could help.

What's next on the list?

 

[Stockwell45]

Right on, Matt! Glad to see you got the light working like you wanted. Thanks for the shoutout, and you're welcome anytime. I'm glad I could help.

What's next on the list?

I'm thinking some OME 861's. With the weight of the tent, bumper, etc. the 9 wraps aren't cutting it. Especially after seeing the success you, Brian2sun, and others have had with them, I feel like they'll really help me out when I'm loaded down.

And of course, I need to save every dollar I can for my Arizona/New Mexico road trip in the spring.

 

[4Running Daily]

I'm thinking some OME 861's. With the weight of the tent, bumper, etc. the 9 wraps aren't cutting it. Especially after seeing the success you, Brian2sun, and others have had with them, I feel like they'll really help me out when I'm loaded down.

And of course, I need to save every dollar I can for my Southern California/Arizona/New Mexico road trip in the spring.

Fixed that for you

 

[Stockwell45]

Fixed that for you

I'll head down there in the spring too, I'll take a more southern route east. It's been too long since I've seen San Diego.

BTW, your 2000th post was on my thread arty:

 

[BigFishAllDay]

I definitely recommend them for rigs with a lot of weight on the back. I'm still very happy with mine. They're a progressive coil, too, so they're not super stiff on the initial stages of compression, but they still hold the weight.

 

[4Running Daily]

I'll head down there in the spring too, I'll take a more southern route east. It's been too long since I've seen San Diego.

BTW, your 2000th post was on my thread arty:

WOOH! We'll hit some trails when you head down here.