Superman3043's Build Thread

[superman3043]

Paintball/Richland Rd Update

First paintball tournament in 8 years. Had a great time. We didn't win, but were really happy with the way we came out of it. We had a slew of issue that we had to overcome. [MENTION=90013]HHIRunner[/MENTION] unfortunately our team did not get to play [MENTION=65653]aha2988[/MENTION] 's team, so you can keep you hundred pennies for now.

Some pics. Still managed to rep the 4R crew. Don't know if you can see it, but my shirt reads "got 4runner?"

Rode Richland road again this past Saturday with [MENTION=47269]Darklight[/MENTION] & [MENTION=94189]hurt4x[/MENTION]. Had a great time as always. Really good to meet you Graham. Had minimum casualties as I banged my front LCA mount on a big rock being stupid on a creek crossing and [MENTION=94189]hurt4x[/MENTION] lost a rear shock as he ripped the upper stem out while rodeoing up a nice little climb without his locker functioning. Good times!

Promised [MENTION=108497]NC4runAR[/MENTION] that I'd post some pics from the ride up for him to enjoy, but as always, I never take as many pictures as I'd like when we ride, because we're too busy driving. Also left the good camera at home, so the ones we got were just cell phone snags. Bobby's wife probably got some good ones that he might post.

Letting some air out. This is right after I smashed on that rock:

Bobby coming up the big Richland ledge:

Stopped to BS at "the playground":

Posing on the big rock:

Our view from dinner. Caught another 4th Gen in the pic:

Thanks for looking!

 

[HHIRunner]

Looks like some good times. I'm glad I get to keep that extra dollar

 

[NC4runAR]

Promised [MENTION=108497]NC4runAR[/MENTION] that I'd post some pics from the ride up for him to enjoy

Looks like home to me! Tell me again where this road is again? I may want to give it a whirl in a month or so when I am back home!

 

[superman3043]

Looks like home to me! Tell me again where this road is again? I may want to give it a whirl in a month or so when I am back home!

Richland Rd. We grab it from Hwy 321 from Lenoir and take it to Maple Gap, Penley, & Sampson Rd, which comes out on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Aho, right outside of Blowing Rock. You should definitely hit it up.

 

[NC4runAR]

We grab it from Hwy 321 from Lenoir and take it to Maple Gap, Penley, & Sampson Rd, which comes out on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Aho, right outside of Blowing Rock. You should definitely hit it up.

Nice, thats not far at all. If the week home holds an open day, I may ride that way, how long is the off road time from 321 to BR?

 

[superman3043]

Nice, thats not far at all. If the week home holds an open day, I may ride that way, how long is the off road time from 321 to BR?

Trail takes about 2 hours to get through start to finish. Perfect little drive. Not too long, not too short.

 

[NC4runAR]

Awesome. Legitimate question here, I have close to no experience off roading, besides a lot on four wheelers. Would I be able to ride this road with just myself and my fiancé being the first time I have taken my runner legitimately off road?

 

[Darklight]

Richland pic's

PD in his natural environment (dig the shirt btw)




4Runner in it's natural environment









ound:


Think i'll just drop these off here:

:yo:


Bobby

 

[aha2988]

Awesome. Legitimate question here, I have close to no experience off roading, besides a lot on four wheelers. Would I be able to ride this road with just myself and my fiancé being the first time I have taken my runner legitimately off road?

Take a buddy with you even if you had all the off-road experience in the world you can never tell when something may just go way wrong and you wind up having to walk.

I've been to uhwarrie more times than i can count but I still would never go out there without another vehicle and wheeling partner.

 

[superman3043]

Awesome. Legitimate question here, I have close to no experience off roading, besides a lot on four wheelers. Would I be able to ride this road with just myself and my fiancé being the first time I have taken my runner legitimately off road?

Take a buddy with you even if you had all the off-road experience in the world you can never tell when something may just go way wrong and you wind up having to walk.

I've been to uhwarrie more times than i can count but I still would never go out there without another vehicle and wheeling partner.

I'll second Austin's sentiment and that it's never really a good idea to wheel alone if you can help it. You never know what might happen. That being said, the first time my wife and I rode this trail, we did it by ourselves. But only because Bobby bailed on us the day prior and we had already planned on making a day of it. Going in, I still took the time to make as many preparations as I could. The truck is built for off-road driving with clearance, tires and armor. We had a winch, straps and a hi-lift for self recovery, should we need it. The locker was even installed at the time, just not wired up yet. The trail itself isn't crazy difficult and it's doable in a stock 4wd if you drive within your means and choose the proper lines. There are only a few spots that you can get off camber or high center. Riding quads will definitely help in choosing lines and knowing how COG's affect vehicle attitudes in different situations.

We have a thread for rides here and if you post when you're going, there are some locals and maybe even some of us non-locals that can make the trip to be your trail buddy:

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/off-roading/143806-day-wheeling-near-boone-nc-12.html

Thanks for the pictures Bobby!!

 

[NC4runAR]

Take a buddy with you even if you had all the off-road experience in the world you can never tell when something may just go way wrong and you wind up having to walk.

I've been to uhwarrie more times than i can count but I still would never go out there without another vehicle and wheeling partner.

10-4 men, thanks for the advice. I should have known that anyways, plus I don't have a hi lift, winch/straps yet anyways. If I decide to go Ill hit up that link!

 

[superman3043]

186K mile update

Maintenance issues have been piling up on me lately. My immediate list of things to do:

- Lower Control Arm rebuild or replace
- ATF drain & fill or flush
- Tie rod replacement
- Space or clearance the front from tires rubbing
- Power steering fluid flush
- Oil change
- Brake fluid flush
- Top off coolant

My entire hit list is much more extensive, but as you can see I'm mainly focusing on fluids and front suspension wear items at the moment.

LCA REBUILD

This has been in the works for a long time. I ordered grease-able ball joints over a year ago. Found a set of gently used LCA's on TacomaWorld a few weeks ago so decided to go the "rebuild" route with OEM components. Figured I'd rebuild the spare set to decrease the down time on my truck and then pass mine along to somebody that was interested in doing the same. Ordered some bushings and rented a ball joint press kit from the parts store and away I went.

Parts Staged:

Ball Joint Press Kit that I used:

Started 2 Saturdays ago and ran into nothing but issues. First, as you can see, my new arms came with the ball joint cradle attached and one of the retaining pins for the castle nuts did not want to come off. Then getting the C-Clip dislodged from the factory BJ's was the next adventure. The next challenge become using the BJ press on a loose set of arms with no bench vise to hold them in place. These type of presses are much better suited to press out ball joints while the control arm is still attached to the vehicle. Rowing a huge breaker bar on an arm that's unsecured is craziness. We came up with a few rigs that worked, but weren't the most elegant solutions. After pressing out both BJ's and getting one pressed halfway back in, I called it a day. I figured it would be much easier on my dads press.

Picked up the following Friday and I was right. The BJ's were super simple with the proper tool:

The bushings, on the other hand, where a completely different story. So obviously a press will not work because of the shape of the arms and the need to press the old ones from the inside out. After some thinking, I decided to use a bottle jack to push out the old bushings. Worked like a charm for the small side (which is the rear one I think). The large bushings proved to be a little more difficult. Later I'd find out that this was due to rust. We ended up pushing the rubber through and stretching it as far as we could using a hydraulic hand pump only because we had one. The bottle jack would have probably worked as well, but we were using one like the factory Toyota jack that you had to turn instead of just pumping on a handle, so it took a lot more work than the hydraulic pump. The rubber would only stretch so far before the small side washer would crumple inside the bushing and bind everything up. We then cut off the large side washer and pushed the rubber back into the sleeve and then banged the rubber out, leaving the bushing sleeve and a little bit of rubber. At this point we used a die grinder to carefully slit the bushing sleeve. I saw a youtube video of somebody doing it with a hacksaw, by threading the blade into the sleeve and reattaching it to the handle. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to do it, but this was what worked for us, using the tools we had. Once the sleeve is slit, you just bang on the lip around the slit with a chisel and the sleeve will crumple in itself and pop right out.

Cleaned up the bushing rings with a wire wheel, slapped some grease in them, and then used some cups from the BJ press kit and a bench vise to install the new bushings.

Rebuilt parts still awaiting install:

Lessons Learned:

- This was not really an easy job. My advice would be to order complete replacement assembly's which run for about $126-215 a piece at rockauto. You'll probably end up saving yourself time, money, effort and frustration in the long run.

- But if somebody were so inclined to go this route, keep an eye out for my LCA's in the classified section in the near future.

On Saturday I did an oil change. Don't know why, but my fuel mileage numbers were some of the best they've ever been at the end of the old oils life cycle... really weird.

On Sunday I did a POWER STEERING FLUID FLUSH

So at 186K miles, this has never been done to my knowledge and the fluid was pretty nasty. Looking in the reservoir, it looked like straight coffee and smelled very cooked. Upon further inspection, the old gunky fluid was actually cooked to the side of the reservoir, so what appeared to be an adequate level , actually was not. I'm not going to do a write-up as there are plenty to look at around.

I foolishly bought only a quart of fluid initially, thinking it would be enough. These use Dexron III ATF as PS fluid. I went back and bought a gallon jug once I realized a quart wouldn't cut it.

How much I actually cycled through the system:

[

First bottle next to last bottle that was pumped out in the light:

Working in a dark garage, it was a little hard to read the level:

I shined my work light through the reservoir in order to read it:

Tips & Tricks/Lessons learned:

- I just used a plastic back and zip tie to plug the return barb on the reservoir

- I still had probably half a gallon left in my gallon jug, so 2-3 quarts would probably suffice for this job.

- Do NOT start your engine to pump the fluid

- I just stuck clear water bottles on the end of the return tube and filled them up a little at a time while pouring fresh fluid into the reservoir. This way I could monitor how clean the fluid was coming out easily.

Noticed that the coolant level was low while I was in there so I got a jug of Toyota red and topped it off.

That's how much I've gotten done so far from the list at the top. I ordered some new cam bolts for the LCA install just in case I have issues. Couldn't hurt to replace them since I'll be in there anyway right? Going to replace LCA's, tie rods and add wheel spacers at the same time. Then just need to service the transmission and flush the brake lines and I'll be good as far as the maintenance items go, so that I can back to modding and fixing other stuff.

 

[t-man]

Maintenance issues have been piling up on me lately. My immediate list of things to do:

- Lower Control Arm rebuild or replace
- ATF drain & fill or flush
- Tie rod replacement
- Space or clearance the front from tires rubbing
- Power steering fluid flush
- Oil change
- Brake fluid flush
- Top off coolant

My entire hit list is much more extensive, but as you can see I'm mainly focusing on fluids and front suspension wear items at the moment.

LCA REBUILD

This has been in the works for a long time. I ordered grease-able ball joints over a year ago. Found a set of gently used LCA's on TacomaWorld a few weeks ago so decided to go the "rebuild" route with OEM components. Figured I'd rebuild the spare set to decrease the down time on my truck and then pass mine along to somebody that was interested in doing the same. Ordered some bushings and rented a ball joint press kit from the parts store and away I went.

Parts Staged:



Ball Joint Press Kit that I used:



Started 2 Saturdays ago and ran into nothing but issues. First, as you can see, my new arms came with the ball joint cradle attached and one of the retaining pins for the castle nuts did not want to come off. Then getting the C-Clip dislodged from the factory BJ's was the next adventure. The next challenge become using the BJ press on a loose set of arms with no bench vise to hold them in place. These type of presses are much better suited to press out ball joints while the control arm is still attached to the vehicle. Rowing a huge breaker bar on an arm that's unsecured is craziness. We came up with a few rigs that worked, but weren't the most elegant solutions. After pressing out both BJ's and getting one pressed halfway back in, I called it a day. I figured it would be much easier on my dads press.

Picked up the following Friday and I was right. The BJ's were super simple with the proper tool:



The bushings, on the other hand, where a completely different story. So obviously a press will not work because of the shape of the arms and the need to press the old ones from the inside out. After some thinking, I decided to use a bottle jack to push out the old bushings. Worked like a charm for the small side (which is the rear one I think). The large bushings proved to be a little more difficult. Later I'd find out that this was due to rust. We ended up pushing the rubber through and stretching it as far as we could using a hydraulic hand pump only because we had one. The bottle jack would have probably worked as well, but we were using one like the factory Toyota jack that you had to turn instead of just pumping on a handle, so it took a lot more work than the hydraulic pump. The rubber would only stretch so far before the small side washer would crumple inside the bushing and bind everything up. We then cut off the large side washer and pushed the rubber back into the sleeve and then banged the rubber out, leaving the bushing sleeve and a little bit of rubber. At this point we used a die grinder to carefully slit the bushing sleeve. I saw a youtube video of somebody doing it with a hacksaw, by threading the blade into the sleeve and reattaching it to the handle. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to do it, but this was what worked for us, using the tools we had. Once the sleeve is slit, you just bang on the lip around the slit with a chisel and the sleeve will crumple in itself and pop right out.

Cleaned up the bushing rings with a wire wheel, slapped some grease in them, and then used some cups from the BJ press kit and a bench vise to install the new bushings.

Rebuilt parts still awaiting install:



Lessons Learned:

- This was not really an easy job. My advice would be to order complete replacement assembly's which run for about $126-215 a piece at rockauto. You'll probably end up saving yourself time, money, effort and frustration in the long run.

- But if somebody were so inclined to go this route, keep an eye out for my LCA's in the classified section in the near future.

On Saturday I did an oil change. Don't know why, but my fuel mileage numbers were some of the best they've ever been at the end of the old oils life cycle... really weird.

On Sunday I did a POWER STEERING FLUID FLUSH

So at 186K miles, this has never been done to my knowledge and the fluid was pretty nasty. Looking in the reservoir, it looked like straight coffee and smelled very cooked. Upon further inspection, the old gunky fluid was actually cooked to the side of the reservoir, so what appeared to be an adequate level , actually was not. I'm not going to do a write-up as there are plenty to look at around.

I foolishly bought only a quart of fluid initially, thinking it would be enough. These use Dexron III ATF as PS fluid. I went back and bought a gallon jug once I realized a quart wouldn't cut it.

How much I actually cycled through the system:



First bottle next to last bottle that was pumped out in the light:



Working in a dark garage, it was a little hard to read the level:



I shined my work light through the reservoir in order to read it:



Tips & Tricks/Lessons learned:

- I just used a plastic back and zip tie to plug the return barb on the reservoir

- I still had probably half a gallon left in my gallon jug, so 2-3 quarts would probably suffice for this job.

- Do NOT start your engine to pump the fluid

- I just stuck clear water bottles on the end of the return tube and filled them up a little at a time while pouring fresh fluid into the reservoir. This way I could monitor how clean the fluid was coming out easily.

Noticed that the coolant level was low while I was in there so I got a jug of Toyota red and topped it off.

That's how much I've gotten done so far from the list at the top. I ordered some new cam bolts for the LCA install just in case I have issues. Couldn't hurt to replace them since I'll be in there anyway right? Going to replace LCA's, tie rods and add wheel spacers at the same time. Then just need to service the transmission and flush the brake lines and I'll be good as far as the maintenance items go, so that I can back to modding and fixing other stuff.

Holy cow you have been busy there!

 

[superman3043]

Holy cow you have been busy there!

Yeah I guess. Just trying to chip away at a list that's been piling up on me over the years. Doing what little bit I can get done at a time.

Hope all is well man!

 

[Darklight]

Good info and tips. Glad to see you getting the list shorter and lca's put togther, I need to do a brake flush pretty soon to and will be adding exended SS lines soon. I was thinking of adding some speed bleeders?

Bobby

 

[superman3043]

Good info and tips. Glad to see you getting the list shorter and lca's put togther, I need to do a brake flush pretty soon to and will be adding exended SS lines soon. I was thinking of adding some speed bleeders?

Bobby

Good getting to see you guys for a minute last night!

Never heard much or had any experience with Speed Bleeders. The idea sounds kinda cool though. I see them like a Fumoto valve though. I tend to weigh the investment over how often you'll actually use the product. To me old school is fine with as little as I actually do the services. YMMV. After all, you did opt for fancy tire deflators where I'm still working with the ole stick lol. That reminds me though, Kirby has one of those one man bleeder pumps. I'll have to hit him up for it lol.

 

[t-man]

Yeah I guess. Just trying to chip away at a list that's been piling up on me over the years. Doing what little bit I can get done at a time.

Hope all is well man!

That's the way to do it. I want to do my lowers as well, but I really want to get some nice aftermarket ones. Time will tell.
Been doing good. Hopefully putting my body lift on this weekend so excited about that. Also my birthday is at the end of the month and my mom is giving me money to spend on my truck. I'm thinking of some off road lights.

 

[Rocket61]

Maintenance issues have been piling up on me lately. My immediate list of things to do:

- Lower Control Arm rebuild or replace
- ATF drain & fill or flush
- Tie rod replacement
- Space or clearance the front from tires rubbing
- Power steering fluid flush
- Oil change
- Brake fluid flush
- Top off coolant

Did you say you replaced the cam bolts? Where did you order them from?

 

[superman3043]

Yes I ordered some replacements through RockAuto. They run about $35. Austin bought the greasable ones that'll cost you a whopping $66! They'll also provide you some nice grease nipples that you can rip off on the rocks lol.

 

[superman3043]

Wanted to share this nice shot that I just got of Austin [MENTION=65653]aha2988[/MENTION] (middle) and I (right side) at our last paintball tournament on our way to victory. 4Runner related because his truck is in the background lol.