What Did You Do To Your 3rd Gen Today?

[octanejunkie]

I remember replacing these being a huge hassle and telling myself just to buy a whole new rack next time because a new rack comes with them installed. Which I need to do soon because the slow PS "seepage" I've had for a decade is dripping on the floor now and the steering feels weird (I have a blown shock too I think). From what I remember I couldn't find a narrow enough big wrench at ended up using the bench grinder to grind one thinner, which wasn't fun. I suggest shopping for some type of thin plumbing wrench that fits the ITRE before you start taking things apart, if they show up from Amaya. Hopefully it goes easier for you. Or if you plan on doing the rack within the next few years maybe just buy a rack instead and save the money on ITREs.

I've done em before, yes needs a good size monkey wrench like Tim shows in his video. My rack is actually good. I'll save the extra $ to go towards a rear bumper

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[Devbot]

I remember replacing these being a huge hassle and telling myself just to buy a whole new rack next time because a new rack comes with them installed. Which I need to do soon because the slow PS "seepage" I've had for a decade is dripping on the floor now and the steering feels weird (I have a blown shock too I think). From what I remember I couldn't find a narrow enough big wrench at ended up using the bench grinder to grind one thinner, which wasn't fun. I suggest shopping for some type of thin plumbing wrench that fits the ITRE before you start taking things apart, if they show up from Amaya. Hopefully it goes easier for you. Or if you plan on doing the rack within the next few years maybe just buy a rack instead and save the money on ITREs.

I just replaced mine last month, they're not terrible by any means. People make the job way harder than it has to be - I didn't even bother with that double skinny wrench nonsense. Just took a big ol pipe wrench to them and twisted them off fine. Ironically I went out and got a proper ITRE tool from Autozone and it was all but useless; the best fitting collar in the set barely sat on the tie rod and rounded off with very little effort
With that said it's definitely hard not to justify a new rack altogether. Last I checked they run about $550 which is only about $100 more than new ITREs and a rebuild kit but you'd be saving yourself a LOT of time, especially with replacing seals. It's really not much to take them on and off and bleeding them is a breeze. But at the same time, if you don't have a leak or anything it's very hard to justify spending money on another perfectly good unit

 

[clearock]

I was wondering what I was looking because it looked like a bunch of fab work like a cooking oil or LPG conversion or something that?

Probably have to be a 40 yr old Coast 2 Coast AM fan to get the John Titor ref. It was an elaborate hoax from 20 yrs ago and he'd post pics like that on forums of his supposed time machine.

Its a food warmer/slow cooker, when ur driving on the trail, wrap the food in tinfoil and lay it across the "grill" then when ever u stop everything's ready to go... as far as the time machine, after we learned that time travel causes early onset Parkinson's from poor Marty Mcfly, I only travel when absolute necessary these days so if the 4runner travels through time when done, it will be a flux...

 

[octanejunkie]

Did a few things documented here >
https://www.toyota-4runner.org/3750668-post176.html

PFA

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[JohnMc]

Just got back from our usual 2 week Colorado/Utah trip. Two new mods on the '99 this year:

1) Manual front hubs. The only way this would have made any real difference is if I'd raised the front ride height up an inch-n-a-half or so, but the coilover nuts/rings were stuck, and my cheap coilover wrenches bent when I tried to budge them. So I didn't bother messing with them before the trip. Perhaps I got .25 MPG better on the road with them unlocked? Who knows. I'll get a better wrench and raise the front up some now that I don't have to worry about the CV boots chewing themselves up.

2) Northwest Fabworks Ecocrawler transfer case doubler. A new alternative to the Marlin Tacobox, only it uses common as can be regular planetary gears in the doubler case, which you can pick up at almost any PnP yard for cheap. So it's got the same reduction on both boxes (2.57), and about 6.6:1 when in LO/LO. I have a manual trans, so this was REALLY GREAT. Awesome mod. Before, on the really big rocks and ledges, I'd either be slipping the clutch and worrying about it (being way out in the middle of nowhere and making clutch smells like that is not comforting), or I'd just be modulating the throttle to keep the motor at around 1000 rpm and not stalling, and bashing through a lot faster and harder than I'd like. Now? When it gets hairy, just engage the second low range and creep on through at a snail's pace. It idles up and down the steepest stuff now with no drama, no bashing, just slow steady progress.

 

[Bad Luck]

Just got back from our usual 2 week Colorado/Utah trip. Two new mods on the '99 this year:

1) Manual front hubs. The only way this would have made any real difference is if I'd raised the front ride height up an inch-n-a-half or so, but the coilover nuts/rings were stuck, and my cheap coilover wrenches bent when I tried to budge them. So I didn't bother messing with them before the trip. Perhaps I got .25 MPG better on the road with them unlocked? Who knows. I'll get a better wrench and raise the front up some now that I don't have to worry about the CV boots chewing themselves up.

2) Northwest Fabworks Ecocrawler transfer case doubler. A new alternative to the Marlin Tacobox, only it uses common as can be regular planetary gears in the doubler case, which you can pick up at almost any PnP yard for cheap. So it's got the same reduction on both boxes (2.57), and about 6.6:1 when in LO/LO. I have a manual trans, so this was REALLY GREAT. Awesome mod. Before, on the really big rocks and ledges, I'd either be slipping the clutch and worrying about it (being way out in the middle of nowhere and making clutch smells like that is not comforting), or I'd just be modulating the throttle to keep the motor at around 1000 rpm and not stalling, and bashing through a lot faster and harder than I'd like. Now? When it gets hairy, just engage the second low range and creep on through at a snail's pace. It idles up and down the steepest stuff now with no drama, no bashing, just slow steady progress.

Awesome mods! Now that you've had some trail time with the NWF crawlbox, do you find the additional gear reduction sufficient or do you wish you had more gear reduction (like MC 4.7 gears instead of the 2.57 additional gear reduction)?

 

[2001 Limited 285K]

Gave her a bath, a full tank of 93 Octane, and a bottle of BG 44K Platinum after I hit a big milestone. Now if I could just figure out how to update my username to 300K ...

 

[octanejunkie]

Awesome mods! Now that you've had some trail time with the NWF crawlbox, do you find the additional gear reduction sufficient or do you wish you had more gear reduction (like MC 4.7 gears instead of the 2.57 additional gear reduction)?

Wondering the same as I'm in almost the same exact boat (manual no roast clutch club)

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[octanejunkie]

Gave her a bath, a full tank of 93 Octane, and a bottle of BG 44K Platinum after I hit a big milestone. Now if I could just figure out how to update my username to 300K ...

Congratulations on the odo roll and 300 Club

These trucks are actually built to run 87 octane. No real value to higher octane unless your running an SC/boost.

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[JohnMc]

Awesome mods! Now that you've had some trail time with the NWF crawlbox, do you find the additional gear reduction sufficient or do you wish you had more gear reduction (like MC 4.7 gears instead of the 2.57 additional gear reduction)?

I really don't think lower gearing would be useful. 1st gear/lo/lo/idling is going really, really slow. My wife has the MC 1/2.57/4.7/12 doubler on hers, she says she uses the 4.7 by itself on most of the more difficult stuff we do, and the 12:1 super low really is mostly a party trick. There are very few situations where gearing that low is actually useful (vs. the 6.6:1 I have with both 2.57's engaged).

In either case, in 1st gear the vehicle is moving so slowly and has so much potential torque that it will idle up (or down) pretty much anything with no fuss. Going even slower isn't doing much at that point - you're already going at a snail's pace.

Not to say one is better than the other, not at all. Just saying that it would be splitting hairs to say one is better than the other. The easy availability of the donor case parts makes the NWF Ecocrawler attractive to a certain extent, however. I think the MC doubler uses an increasingly hard to find version of the geared reduction box from a 1st gen. And not the more common versions of 1st gen boxes either, I think it's from a Turbo?

Either way, not something you're going to find swinging by the local PnP. But chain drive reduction boxes? For the time being, at least, they're very easy to find. And the list of donors for the middle reduction gearset is pretty big, the rear case a bit less so. But you'd normally use the one you already have.

 

[Bad Luck]

I really don't think lower gearing would be useful. 1st gear/lo/lo/idling is going really, really slow. My wife has the MC 1/2.57/4.7/12 doubler on hers, she says she uses the 4.7 by itself on most of the more difficult stuff we do, and the 12:1 super low really is mostly a party trick. There are very few situations where gearing that low is actually useful (vs. the 6.6:1 I have with both 2.57's engaged).

In either case, in 1st gear the vehicle is moving so slowly and has so much potential torque that it will idle up (or down) pretty much anything with no fuss. Going even slower isn't doing much at that point - you're already going at a snail's pace.

Not to say one is better than the other, not at all. Just saying that it would be splitting hairs to say one is better than the other. The easy availability of the donor case parts makes the NWF Ecocrawler attractive to a certain extent, however. I think the MC doubler uses an increasingly hard to find version of the geared reduction box from a 1st gen. And not the more common versions of 1st gen boxes either, I think it's from a Turbo?

Either way, not something you're going to find swinging by the local PnP. But chain drive reduction boxes? For the time being, at least, they're very easy to find. And the list of donors for the middle reduction gearset is pretty big, the rear case a bit less so. But you'd normally use the one you already have.

Thank you for the detailed response. It reinforces what I imagined. My brother had an 85 4Runner that he built for rock crawling and he had dual marlin crawler transfer cases (4.7:1 doubler and 2.28:1 stock). It was really slow in double low range and 1st gear, but seemed overkill. He was able to idle through just about anything he pointed the 4Runner at though.

Did the doubler increase drivetrain noise while on road driving/highway? What was your total cost if you don't mind me asking? This does seem to be a more reasonable/economical way to get a doubler.

 

[JohnMc]

Thank you for the detailed response. It reinforces what I imagined. My brother had an 85 4Runner that he built for rock crawling and he had dual marlin crawler transfer cases (4.7:1 doubler and 2.28:1 stock). It was really slow in double low range and 1st gear, but seemed overkill. He was able to idle through just about anything he pointed the 4Runner at though.

Did the doubler increase drivetrain noise while on road driving/highway? What was your total cost if you don't mind me asking? This does seem to be a more reasonable/economical way to get a doubler.

Not really any added noise while driving in hi/hi. Sometimes and certain RPM's, on of the triple sticks would occasionally make a tiny rattle, but I'd just nudge it and it would shut up for a while. It makes lo range noises in lo range, and double the lo range noises in double low range.

I had to look it up, it's been a while (first paid last November), but I got some sort of pre-order discount for ordering before they were ready, thus the long wait. $1399 for the doubler setup and the very nicely made triple stick setup.

Then a couple of ordinary plain old PnP donor transfer cases. I got two because I wanted to have it all set up on the bench and ready to go on, vs. taking mine off and having the truck not running until it was completed. I think I paid maybe $50 a piece for the two transfer cases? The planetary (middle) donor could be from a wide range of mid 90's - mid 00's Toyotas (Tacos, 4Runners, Sequias, Tundras), but I had to find the right rear case donor, the same h-pattern case as I already had.

Then some custom length driveshafts, about 6 inches difference front and rear (I think my wife's MC setup was something like 8.5 inches). IIRC those were around 800-ish.

And that's really it. I bench assembled the NWF kit with the two donor boxes. Initially I was under the impression that the rear box sort of bolted right on, very few changes, but really, it had to come apart slightly more than the middle donor case did - since you need to replace the planetary gearset input shaft in that box. For the middle donor, you just strip it down to the stock planetary gearset and put that in the new case as is. So you are really stripping both cases *WAY* down. Not too difficult though. I had to do it twice because I *ahem* forgot a little ball bearing that goes on the input shaft in the rear box that locates something circlipped onto it. I discovered this after it was almost all the way together, and had to tear it 99% of the way back down, lol.

Then once the driveshafts arrived, it was a really quick process to pull my t-case, leaving the trans untouched and in place, and then slide the new setup in place. I extended some wires for the sensor on the rear case (the car doesn't know about the middle case), bolted up the driveshafts, and then sewed up a new shifter boot for the triple sticks and installed it.

 

[octanejunkie]

I really don't think lower gearing would be useful. 1st gear/lo/lo/idling is going really, really slow. My wife has the MC 1/2.57/4.7/12 doubler on hers, she says she uses the 4.7 by itself on most of the more difficult stuff we do, and the 12:1 super low really is mostly a party trick. There are very few situations where gearing that low is actually useful (vs. the 6.6:1 I have with both 2.57's engaged).

With 2.57 doubled (TC lo/underdrive lo) and 4.3 rear gears a final drive ratio would be over 100:1, according to grimmjeeper.com but I can see the advantage of dual lol and am leaning that way eventually, too

I'm also looking at NWF and curious what stick option you went with, top or forward

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[SeaTrav]

I got worried about a weird noise

So today I got concerned about a sound my 2000 SR5 is making.
Accelerating up a ramp to the freeway a big bang bang, or thud type sound that you could feel in the floor board started happening, with it a loss of power and the catalytic code came up.
Anyway my first time here aside from getting good help from the forums
Now the same noise can happen coasting down smooth pavement in neutral at 20mph
So I'm wondering what's up
I've replaced what I thought was a worn original CV, it was fine, took off the front driveshaft, fine, greased stuff, replaced bushings, done my rear axle bearings,
So there I am
Thanks for any advice or help in advance and thanks for listening!

 

[Bad Luck]

So today I got concerned about a sound my 2000 SR5 is making.
Accelerating up a ramp to the freeway a big bang bang, or thud type sound that you could feel in the floor board started happening, with it a loss of power and the catalytic code came up.
Anyway my first time here aside from getting good help from the forums
Now the same noise can happen coasting down smooth pavement in neutral at 20mph
So I'm wondering what's up
I've replaced what I thought was a worn original CV, it was fine, took off the front driveshaft, fine, greased stuff, replaced bushings, done my rear axle bearings,
So there I am
Thanks for any advice or help in advance and thanks for listening!

Sounds like a misfire to me. Does it increase with engine rpm or vehicle speed?

 

[JohnMc]

I'm also looking at NWF and curious what stick option you went with, top or forward

Top/right offset, what they suggested for the manual trans. It would have fit perfectly if not for my 1" body lift, with the lift the right-most stick needed some trimming in the shifter surround.

 

[JohnMc]

So today I got concerned about a sound my 2000 SR5 is making.
Accelerating up a ramp to the freeway a big bang bang, or thud type sound that you could feel in the floor board started happening, with it a loss of power and the catalytic code came up.
Anyway my first time here aside from getting good help from the forums
Now the same noise can happen coasting down smooth pavement in neutral at 20mph
So I'm wondering what's up
I've replaced what I thought was a worn original CV, it was fine, took off the front driveshaft, fine, greased stuff, replaced bushings, done my rear axle bearings,
So there I am
Thanks for any advice or help in advance and thanks for listening!

What was the OBD2 code? It's hard to picture what's happening from a description, a video might help.

 

[octanejunkie]

Top/right offset, what they suggested for the manual trans. It would have fit perfectly if not for my 1" body lift, with the lift the right-most stick needed some trimming in the shifter surround.

Good to know, I'm running a 1-inch body lift also. Unfortunately the likelihood of me finding two transfer cases for the same price as you is beyond unlikely.

I'll start looking for guys parting out VF2/j-shift transfer cases.

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[JohnMc]

Good to know, I'm running a 1-inch body lift also. Unfortunately the likelihood of me finding two transfer cases for the same price as you is beyond unlikely.

I'll start looking for guys parting out VF2/j-shift transfer cases.

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Yeah, those were from you-pull-it yards, so they involved laying around under crunched trucks in a junkyard for 45 minutes or so to pull each one.

Oh, and I forgot that the triple stick setup wasn't included in that price I stated earlier, or whatever reason I got billed separately for the triple stick setup, it was $400. Looking at their website, I see prices have gone up a bit, plus I got some pre-order discounts as well.

So
$1400 - doubler kit
$800 - driveshafts
$400 - triple stick kit
$100(ish) - 2 donor t-cases

$2700? Sheesh, I don't like adding up these things. The prices always seem better as separate numbers. Like the turbo 6-spd LS swap I did in my Volvo wagon, my mental math was about 1/3rd less than reality.

 

[octanejunkie]

Yeah, those were from you-pull-it yards, so they involved laying around under crunched trucks in a junkyard for 45 minutes or so to pull each one.



Oh, and I forgot that the triple stick setup wasn't included in that price I stated earlier, or whatever reason I got billed separately for the triple stick setup, it was $400. Looking at their website, I see prices have gone up a bit, plus I got some pre-order discounts as well.



So

$1400 - doubler kit

$800 - driveshafts

$400 - triple stick kit

$100(ish) - 2 donor t-cases



$2700? Sheesh, I don't like adding up these things. The prices always seem better as separate numbers. Like the turbo 6-spd LS swap I did in my Volvo wagon, my mental math was about 1/3rd less than reality.

$1,699 all in with the triple stick setup now

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