TiVo V8 Build

[tv4184]

1/8/19 - Wilco - part 2

I had to come up with a temporary plate location. Otherwise I would have to remove the tire every time I went anywhere.

It's a bit ghetto but the world of tuner cars is held together with double sided tape. My temp solution until I get my nutserts from Amazon to permanently install it. I also tied the plate to the tire carrier in case the DS tape decides to let go. It is pretty firm though, it might actually be difficult to remove once I redo the mounting.

I think it looks cleaner on the same side as the tire but it might be better in a legal sense to mount it to the right hand side. I already ordered the lights for the plate but haven't ordered the wire adapter to wire them up. Neither are here yet but I did, however, get these in the mail.

My friend sent me a link to a page where they make custom hitch covers and he had these OG TRD logos along with USA colored ones. He was sold out of the USA ones. I thought they would have been 3d printed plastic but to my surprise they're very similar in build to the TRD pro metal ones. It's just held on with painters tape for now. I just wanted to see how it'd turn out. It looks a little too sparse IMO. Might play with the alignment later.

 

[CampingT4R]

Great build! Thank you for some inspiration.

 

[tv4184]

Trying to catch up with all these parts I have sitting in the garage waiting to be installed. I ended up doing a V6 conversion today.

I had a few issues with about half the bolts, rusted from NE winters. Had to dismantle the grill to get the last bolt off.

Cleaned off about 11 years worth of crud afterwards. It did leave a slight black mark from the old gasket. I'll probably polish it off later this week.

You can see the upper two brackets basically broke when I tried to remove the bolts. Two of the brackets holding in the metal frame also broke off. One of the nuts was rust welded on and ended up breaking the stud off.

I had this factory new Limited grill sitting in a box in my garage for a whole year. Ordered it before I picked up my car last year but never opened the box. Luckily no damage, I doubt CamelBack Toyota would have allowed me to exchange it out if there were any issues. I got it from here in case anyone is interested 2007 Limited 4Runner Grill - CamelBack Toyota

The old V8 badge looks sort of faded against the brand new black grill.

I still need to hit up Lowes for new nuts.

I also went ahead and replaced the cabin air filter. I probably shouldn't have been lazy about this...the filter has also been sitting in my garage for the past year.



Just a few boring updates. I still have a few more items to do. Another post for another time.

 

[hinmo24t]

still working on your runner??

 

[tv4184]

still working on your runner??

Nothing really to note. I'm a bit behind on maintenance right now. Since my last update I've gotten back into working on my aquarium hobby so the car thing went on the back burner. I have no more budget left for car stuff but I do have a lot of things I can work on that I do need to get to. The summer time just makes it really hard to get out there to wrench of things in Houston. I remember doing the BBK last year around this time. I do plan on working on my FD as soon as 2019 rolls around.



I am working on getting 34s for the 4runner though. I also had aftermarket UCAs installed from True Travel but I've had hell of a time trying to get both front coils to adjust, even with liquid wrench on the collars I got one side done but the other side started to deform. I haven't gotten around to working on it since the last time I messed with it. Here's some shots of the new UCAs.

Here's a shot of one of the aquariums I setup...one of many :faint2:

There goes my s/c budget haha [emoji23]

 

[hinmo24t]

The tank is sweet. You do saltwater? MA/RI summer has been too humid to work in my garage too.

 

[tv4184]

The tank is sweet. You do saltwater? MA/RI summer has been too humid to work in my garage too.

Just freshwater and planted aquariums. Haven't opened that rabit hole yet for reef tanks...

 

[tv4184]

8/16/19 - Postcard from Texas

I went up to DFW to pick up some stuff off Facebook marketplace. I stopped by this furniture place on the west side of Fort Worth to get some mall crawling style pics. It's been on my list of places to go to around the state. Good time as any, only downside is the rig was a bit dirty from the 4 hour trip up.

Usually for these types of trips I would take the Tesla, but I ended up finding some wheels last minute for the RX7. I had the 4Runner packed pretty good with aquarium stuff and the wheels. Felt like I was back in college moving back from Austin.

I had some fun mocking up the wheels on the IS300 and Model 3. If it weren't for the stud size, I could run these on the Model 3 no problem.

I wasn't sold on the "limited edition" Hyper Blues initially but seeing them in person changed my mind. I really wanted the TE37SLs because the price was good enough to consider them plus they had Bridgestone RE71r's already. They'll do for now since I'm still working on the RX7 anyway, so any tires is better than bare rims. Now I just have to figure whether I want to keep my Volk GT-Ps or sell them. Hopefully, next post will be more 4Runner related.

 

[tv4184]

9/14/19 - Kenwood Steering Update

Just some small updates. I did try to splice the steering wheel connections for the Kenwood but I think the plug that I had from metra did not work well. I ordered another one from overseas that has better connections just to be sure. I'll just show the solder work and diagram anyway for future reference.

I picked up a few things over the past couple weeks that'll make it into my build thread eventually. I did get a scar on my front bumper this past Saturday morning though. What a story too, I was headed back to my parents house early morning and this dude comes out of the gas station headed the wrong way into traffic. I had to come to a stop and he's stopped right in front of my 4Runner. I couldn't reverse because there were cars behind me and he just proceeds to turn and drive his entire side of his car against my front bumper and just drives away like nothing happened. My mind was so blown from what was going on that I didn't even had the reflex to pull out my phone to record the incident. I still have to file the police report on the incident. My friend says that he can repair the damage with light sanding and spot paint fix.

The day before I went to a local shop to talk to someone about fabbing up a rear tail gate setup similar to [MENTION=130999]Inv4drZm[/MENTION] before he went full rear bumper setup. Unfortunately my rear frame, specifically where the setup would weld to has alot of rust. It would either require repair to the frame or a frame replacement to really install a setup like that. I'll have to pull the rear bumper cover at some point to assess the extent of the cancer. I knew this was going to come up at some point. East coast salt history wouldn't be pretty and this was one of those times. He gave me an estimate on repairing the frame itself along with building the tire carrier. We'll see, there's other things I also need to tend to, like finding an FJ axle with an e-locker and maybe a front bumper now that I have a semi excuse to get one.

 

[tv4184]

9/14/19 - IS300 Headunit

Not 4Runner related but since I haven't started a thread on it, I'll post it here. I finally got around to doing my first mod for the IS300. I picked up an Alpine ILX-107 off facebook marketplace when it randomly popped up on my feed. Turns out the IS300 is like the JBL setup for the 4Runner where it requires fancy circuitry to translate the speaker signals for the amplifier, either that or splice the factory harness directly. I wasn't quite ready to do the latter so I went with the easy route for now. I haven't had to solder so many wires since 2002, when I was soldering resistors to LEDs to change the color of my interior on my first 3rd gen. It took a couple days to finish everything because I had to stop to order a micro-bypass circuit to defeat the parking brake feature. Couple other hiccups with heat shrinking wrong wires and routing them to the wrong places. But here are the steps and finalized pictures.

The Scosche kit seems to match the texture of the rest of the panels pretty well. The person that sold me the unit did not include the remote nor the GPS antenna. Luckily the GPS antenna from the Kenwood unit in the 4Runner uses the same plug in case I need it. Not really sure if I need the remote but eBay is always there if necessary. I just hope I didn't spend 2 hours soldering connections for a dead unit, since I didn't get to test it when I bought it last week.

Glad it booted up fine. Took some fine tuning to get it sounding right. It still is a bit tinny but its a by product of the harness I bought. I'll have to switch it for another one down the road but for now it'll do since I only drive the car twice a month anyway.

This is 4Runner related but I finally installed this antenna adapter for the 4Runner. Had this and the Y adapter sitting in the garage for the longest time. Here's to having full radio signal? Who knows I never use it but might as well install it since I already bought it.

 

[tv4184]

I had an itch to scratch this week and almost went to the dark side and got one of these...

I was originally just checking out FJ Cruisers and then thought I wanted a bit more power on a slightly newer platform so I checked out a few GX460s. This good deal came up but I’m on the fence because I know there’s so much more I can do with the 4th gen and I still like the look overall... Maybe it’s a midlife crisis thing. Might been spurred on by the almost departure of my 3rd gen in the next few days too. I just gotta say, for 135k on the clock that GX still feels just as good as the ones I drove with 100k less miles...

 

[hinmo24t]

any progress?

 

[tv4184]

02/2020 - rear Fox DSC resi 2.0 / spacer / plate light update

I haven't forgotten about the runner build. I just haven't had time between snowboarding / aquarium / extra work shifts to update the thread.
I had a small update back in February.

I was supposed to get these installed back in November but these coming off a Tacoma did not have the right bushings to fit my 4Runner. It took a while for me to sync back up with the guy to get them installed.

They definitely buttoned up the ride quality afterwards though. I'll have to go back to him in a few weeks to get the reservoir mounts put on. I also had some spider trax laying around so I put them on the next day for some extra clearance til I can get the reservoirs done.

This second part has been in wait for over a year. I meant to wire the rear plate light for a while. I bought a trailer box because I wanted to run the reverse cam to the tiregate but decided that might be a bad idea. I'll have to rethink that strategy now.

I didn't like the solution for most of the plate LEDs but ended up finding this ATV led that worked. I'll have to move the plate and mount it properly but it looks better for me even though I rarely look at it.

Also took some time to wash the rear end while doing a light wash on the Model 3. I really can't wait to get my 295s on the 4Runner but I have tons of parts stacked up for the FD / IS300 and the front DirtKing LCAs for the 4Runner as well. Just a small update for now. Hope everyone is staying safe out there.

 

[tv4184]

Welp I was on the way to get my reservoirs welded on today and guy ran red light. Distance was too short to stop in time so my driver side is boned. Frame is bent and wheel is cocked in. Not sure what they’re gonna rule but it’ll probably be totaled. I’ll be making few calls tomorrow. No part out though...I’ll be on the prowl for another...

 

[momo.75]

Welp I was on the way to get my reservoirs welded on today and guy ran red light. Distance was too short to stop in time so my driver side is boned. Frame is bent and wheel is cocked in. Not sure what they’re gonna rule but it’ll probably be totaled. I’ll be making few calls tomorrow. No part out though...I’ll be on the prowl for another...

Damn, sorry man. Glad you are ok!

 

[montijo505]

Welp I was on the way to get my reservoirs welded on today and guy ran red light. Distance was too short to stop in time so my driver side is boned. Frame is bent and wheel is cocked in. Not sure what they’re gonna rule but it’ll probably be totaled. I’ll be making few calls tomorrow. No part out though...I’ll be on the prowl for another...

Dang, sucks big time. Well at least now you don't have to deal with the rusty frame!

I kid I kid, I'm glad you're ok. Seems like people are always posting crashes and no injuries, nice to know these trucks are pretty safe since I have kids.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

 

[tv4184]

Damn, sorry man. Glad you are ok!

Dang, sucks big time. Well at least now you don't have to deal with the rusty frame!

I kid I kid, I'm glad you're ok. Seems like people are always posting crashes and no injuries, nice to know these trucks are pretty safe since I have kids.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

Thanks guys. I'm just waiting to see what the insurance says. I might just have to buy back the truck bc all these interiors I've been seeing are in bad shape compared to the one I had. I've just been having sore achy lower back pangs. Nothing too serious.

 

[tv4184]

6/23/20 - untimely ending

All good things had to come to an end. Just not the ending on my own terms. It all happened so quickly. I was on my way to get the reservoir mounts welded on and someone ran red light and I couldn't stop the truck in time. Partly old rubber on the tires and partly I only saw the speeding silver truck in the corner of my eye before I tried stopping.

I spent better part of the week recovering from the shock of the incident and then started to search for another v8 4wd in white. Mostly east coast ones came up. Not many sport models. I ended up switching to FJ search because one of my best buds said the timing wouldn't be better to try one out since I only have dogs and no kids yet. I did the same thing as I did with the 4th gen and ended up with the lowest cost option with reasonable mileage. I rented a car at the end of the work week last Wednesday and drove up Thursday to Tennessee. Drove it back Friday (6/20/20) in the morning after picking her up from the dealership. She's a bit rough with some paint scars on driver door and warped front rotor. Engine still pulls hard though, for a V6 mind you. Here she is, 2011 FJ with 4wd / locker. Dealer put on some Travelstar Ecopaths...never heard of them til now lol.

Started the breakdown of the 4th gen this past Sunday. Good thing I had most of my stock parts and left over new oem brake parts to swap all out.

You can see where the caliper smacked the LCA from the accident. Impact also damaged my frame but didn't deploy the airbags surprisingly.

I might have to leave the dobinson springs though. I forgot to undo the panhard and sway bars so I couldn't compress them enough to get them off my first attempt. Might try again this coming Sunday along with swapping the front seats and maybe the trailer hitch.

 

[Stone618]

Just finished ready all of our build. Very nice build. Sorry about the accident but glad nobody got seriously hurt. Let me know if your throwing any parts out. lol. :thumb:

 

[tv4184]

Heres linky to the new build 2011 FJ Mall Crawler Build

I'll come back and update this thread once the insurance is all finalized. I didn't want to post anything until that was all done and settled.