Spiker Engineering
official vendor
The number of essential parts that are being discontinued and the rate in which it is happening is frightening. Very soon we will be at a point where used or aftermarket will be out only options for parts that are used only on 3rd Gen 4Runners.
Indeed, and if you want a glimpse into the future, look no further than the 1st Gen T4R's. I'm finding out that many parts that are easily available for the 3rd Gen are discontinued for the 1st Gens, forcing me to turn to junkyards (where 1st Gens are almost nonexistent) or Facebook.
I doubt Toyota can be convinced to restart production of things like hoses, but I wonder if we as a group can find an aftermarket supplier to manufacture molded vacuum hoses? Again, probably need a critical mass of folks to make it viable.
One thing that is really annoying is that many parts that are discontinued have a very similar part still in production that would work just fine. But Toyota simply shows the part as discontinued, and it's impossible to search by "features" to see what else might fit. For example, the power steering return hose for the 1st Gen is discontinued. So folks are trying to use 3/8" hose instead of the 10mm. To get it to slip onto the 10mm tubing, they have to heat the rubber to make it more pliable. I don't like that approach at all. So after digging around forever, I found that the 2nd Gen power steering return hose is 17.5" long rather than 19" of the 1st Gen, but is more than adequate in length. And it's the correct diameter. It would be really nice if one could search by something like "hose length" rather than just a part number. Same for things like bolts, it would be nice to search by thread pitch and length.