txbonds 97 4runner limited project

[txbonds]

Dropping the Sonoran diff drop out and jacking the diff back up with spare jack did the trick on the large steering rack bolt.

Drop kit removed. Only problem is one of the top washers dropped down into a hole in the cross member that runs right there. Not sure how I'm going to get it out yet but will come back to it when I have the drivers tire mounted and I can safely crawl all under truck.

Don't judge my wood 4x4's as I only used this small jack to lift the diff up. Truck is sitting on jack stand with floor jack also there as backup.

Blurry picture, but you can see the empty bolt hole in the back right and the diff next to it. That was the culprit bolt. Getting it out gave me enough wiggle with the steering rack to wiggle the cam and bolt out of the LCA. I put steering rack bolt back in partway backwards to just hold the steering rack until I'm ready to swap bushings.

Where I stand right this minute with new LCA hanging and lightly tightened to hold CAMS in place on paint marks I made. Will need to be torqued still.

Up next is the light racing UCA.

 

[I'mStock]

Good point.


Love the runner in your link. If that one is yours it looks awesome. I'm sort of wishing I'd just bit the bullet and gone SAS, but I guess that will give me a future project one day or a reason to upgrade.

First link is out blog, that SAS runner is from this site (username escapes me), my build is the second link.

 

[txbonds]

First link is out blog, that SAS runner is from this site (username escapes me), my build is the second link.

Cool. I left a message on your thread. Nice truck and sorry about the accident. That sucks. Good luck with everything.



Got the light racing arm bolted in. Hard to do by yourself when you have to reach in hood and under wheel well at same time, but got it done and torqued down to 85 ft lbs, used blue loctite and used a jam nut like on the other side for extra safety.

 

[smkd13]

Good point.


Love the runner in your link. If that one is yours it looks awesome. I'm sort of wishing I'd just bit the bullet and gone SAS, but I guess that will give me a future project one day or a reason to upgrade.

Man the overhaul is coming along nicely. And btw the runner in the pic is LinyRunner off here. Her just got his SAS done.

 

[txbonds]

Man the overhaul is coming along nicely. And btw the runner in the pic is LinyRunner off here. Her just got his SAS done.

Thanks Man! It has certainly been a learning experience. Lots of fun but lots of frustration too! :becky:



So today I've pushed forward on the drivers side. Got the seal figured out first thing. Decided based on my prior pictures the seal goes in with the cup or bowl side facing the differential. This also means I did the passenger side backwards and will get to redo it. fun fun

New drivers side seal tapped into place

Straightened out the outer dust shield like on the other side as they were both damaged in shipping. Unfortunately I've had them just sitting for too long to go back and ask for replacement from Camelback as I ordered them last year, months and months ago. Neither side is pretty, but the metal part fits and the rubber part seems to all be fine and intact. Shame on me for not addressing when I got them but I'm going to try them as is before resorting to a replacement shield.

Drivers CV Axle installed (for the second time today) and hanging with my helping hand to keep it out of the way for the moment. (second time because first time I put the inner dust shield on backwards. Realized it after axle was already in and had to pull axle again. ugh!)

Can't see much but you can see the axle seated into diff and where the dust shield rides

Shock and spring reinstalled and torqued into place top and bottom

:doh: :doh: :doh: :doh: :doh: :doh:
I have learned one tip that may help others. When it comes to getting the CV Axles out of the diff or diff extension tube, most people seem to use a crow bar, long screw driver, or other implement to pry the axle outward. The resistance as you know is due to the retaining ring on the end of the axle. Keeps it in there, but makes it a pain in the arse to pry them out.

Well, the simplest way I've found to get these out without damage to the various parts, including the seal, is to use this simple little device:

Simply take the large chisel or other tapered item and place it under the edge of the axle flange that you normally pry against. Place it in such a way that it can just slide underneath that flange and against the outside of the differential tube. This should slide under and out the other side of the little tab, so make sure you don't have it pointed in towards the axle itself. Then using a hammer like a 3 lb sledge, hammer the chisel so that it slips through that space. Rotate the CV and do the same under each of the 3 flange tabs. Forcing the wedge shaped chisel through pushes the axle out.

Don't know why I didn't think of it before, but after fighting with this one for 30 minutes with a pry bar and large screw driver, the idea hit me. Hopefully it helps someone else out and sorry I don't have any pictures.

 

[txbonds]

Little more progress and lots more frustration.

Getting ready to mount the new toyota LBJ assembly onto the knuckle with new toyota bolts and blue loctite. Torqued the 4 bolts to 59 ft lbs. (note the blue seen in these pictures is not my loctite and is something that came on them from toyota)

As you can see the brake dust shield is gone on this one too as I had both sides mounted backwards. Since the hub presses through them and they are one piece, no way to fix them without un-pressing everything.


rear hub seal taped into place with wood block and rubber mallet

Moved brake caliper back to the left side so that it is ready to mount and the lines are routed properly before mounting the knuckle.

Knuckle, lower ball joint and upper ball joint set into place. Torqued both upper ball joint nuts into place and inserted the cotter pin.

And here is where the fun started that I've been fooling with for the past few hours. The lower ball joint castle nut would not tighten. Instead the ball joint itself would just spin. I tried taking it out of the LCA numerous times and tried to reseat it with no luck.

I tried almost everything you can think of to make this thing seat into the taper in the LCA and finally came up with a solution that worked. With two people this probably wouldn't be an issue, but since I'm by myself it took some creativity and lots of reading for others ideas.

What finally made the taper seat enough to start tightening down the castle nut enough to set the torque at 103 ft lbs per the FSM for my 97 is this, a floor jack underneath the LCA lifting the truck almost off my other jack and stands, and a long metal pry bar above the knuckle and under the frame

(sorry for the blurry pic)




More to follow! Keep watching! eep:

 

[txbonds]

And wrapping it up for the day, the cv axle spacer and snap ring were put on

Gasket in place

The manual hub base was attached

Center cv axle bolt with washer attached. (In center of hub)

Hub cover with lever attached and wheel mounted

Drivers side done

Now I need to pull passenger side apart and swap the seal around, then swap out the inner and outer tie rods and steering rack bushings, and then remount the sway bar and new links/bushings. Lots to do but feel as though I'm in home stretch.

 

[TXRick]

At this point I usually think "whew, almost done" but then the little voice in the back of my head says "not really man...not really" lol

Everything looks awesome! I'll be back building on mine in a few weeks

 

[SCSPerformance]

Wow, you've got a beautiful build going. I don't know how I missed it.

 

[txbonds]

I had been planning to place 3 hella 4000 lights on my front bumper using two cornering beams and one euro beam. Unfortunately I've reached a possible snag in my plans in that I have a few issues going on.

Spacing wise, three will fit left to right, and they sit slightly behind the upper tubing, so that's not an issue. The biggest problem I'm looking at is that once installed the covers won't fit. Without a way to snap the protective covers on, I face the risk of damage as well as the problem with tickets for having them uncovered on the road.

I can drop back down to only the two cornering lights and get the covers to sort of rotate into place because it takes the side tubes out of the equation, but I'm not ready to give just yet.


Spacing if using 3 lights

Spacing if dropping back to only the two lights

Another possible obstacle is my front CB antenna mount hole. I was planning to run a wire to this location so that I have the option to swap antenna locations between front or rear if I want. Seems crazy but I wanted the flexibility

The reason the cover doesn't fit easily are these large tabs that hold it on

The close proximity of light to bumper bar is the issue for the tabs

In the grand scheme of things, I realize this isn't a big problem, but I really wanted to get 3 up there. I'm sure it will work just fine with only the two as well.

Next up is finding two lights I like that fit into the pockets below. I'm thinking maybe some hella 4000 compact fogs, but have to measure to see if they will fit. The full size 4000's won't fit.

 

[zgensler31]

Maybe get different covers? Like the sock type ones that have elastic instead of those clips?

 

[txbonds]

Maybe get different covers? Like the sock type ones that have elastic instead of those clips?

Thought about it but not sure anyone makes one large enough. However, I'm not sure the third light is going to work anyway based on where the wire pigtail plugs into the housing as I think it is going to be too close to the winch solenoid. Will have to do some measuring but it's looking like just the 2 are going to be the best fit.

I'm trying to get all of my lighting mounted without the roof rack as I'm not sure if I'm using the rack or not. If I put it on the truck won't fit in the garage. So I might be getting creative with my light mounts for side and rear and skipping the rack. Still working on that decision too.

 

[txbonds]

Cut a piece of the front grille out

So that I can fit the grille into place before painting it flat black

The reason is to clear the solenoid pack on top of the warn zeon

Which still offers ample clearance for lights and to reach the engagement handle on the winch.

 

[txbonds]

After earlier cuts above

Based on the location for the remote plug in I had to trim a little further to allow it to fit.

It's not as pretty and symmetrical but it now fits and allows access for operating the winch. Need to sand the cut edges.

The lights still pretty much hide the cuts from view

 

[txbonds]

Picked up the new rack from Advanced Auto this evening. Took a bunch of pictures. Looks pretty good other than the fact that it wasn't packed very well and movement in the box knocked paint off the tubing in many spots and some spots have some sort of cardboard or carpet fiber fuzz on them. It also came with bushings installed but not sure how they compare to Toyota bushings or Poly bushings. Will have to decide if I use them or put the Energy poly set it got through Wheelers in instead.

 

[txbonds]

For future reference, I'm linking to this thread where people helped me pick the steering rack above: http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-gen-t4rs/162228-3rd-gen-steering-rack-deals.html



Got my supplies. Couldn't find any ATF that said specifically it was dextron II or III, but I did find this and I'm guessing it should work ok:

Also grabbed a set of line/flare nut wrenches

Will try to get started on the rack swap in the next few days.

 

[Whitson Metalworks]

Hurry uuuuuuuupp. Lol, this is an amazing build, you have way more patience than I do!

 

[txbonds]

Hurry uuuuuuuupp. Lol, this is an amazing build, you have way more patience than I do!

Not patience, just an extreme lack of time. If I hurried up and finished then what would I do with my spare time. Besides I know you really prefer the drama of waiting..............it's like watching a tv series and having to wait until next week to see what happens on the next episode. :lol:

 

[deverlow]

Holy cow. Not an expense was spared in a total restoration done RIGHT. Thanks for the inspiration/motivation!

 

[txbonds]

Holy cow. Not an expense was spared in a total restoration done RIGHT. Thanks for the inspiration/motivation!

Ha! Thanks for the kind words. Not thanks for reminding me of the cost. LOL


On a totally separate note, I finally got a chance to work on the steering rack this morning. So far, with a little effort and some contortionist moves with the flare/line wrench, I was able to get the two hydraulic lines off and drained the fluid.

Next up I have to get the steering linkage bolts loose. I did tie the steering wheel into centered position using the seat belt. Fun, fun.