A Guy A Girl and a Trail: Adventures in a 4Runner Limited

Thursday we went for a hike through and ancient forest of 1000 year old trees

 

Loving this thread so far, keep it up!

Where did you get the underbody pressure washer attachment? I need one in my life lol

 

Amazon, but you can even Home Depot tends to stock a Ryobi version. Effectiveness will be dependent on the psi rating of the power washer.

 

Highlanders are awesome, my wife bought an 2006 Hybrid Limited Highlander new back in the days. Almost 190,000 miles now, only 100K tune up, replaced a couple battery cells, nothing ever malfunctioned/failed. Still going strong!

 

Awesome thanks dude.

 

A couple weeks ago I had my first problem with the 4Runner. It was really hot, the 4Runner was reading 99 on the display, we had 4 adults and my son in it and we were sitting there idling a long slow moving drive thru line. Everything was fine for a and then I started to notice it was getting hot in there. I’m like uh oh, I hope the A/C didn’t just take shit. I checked the gauges and saw the coolant temp up above normal, not dangerously high, not overheating, but climbing for sure so I turned the a/c off and shut the truck down instead of letting it idle. I kept starting it to move my way up and then I’d shut it down again. Once we made it though the drive thru line and I got on the road moving again everything was fine. That makes sense - high heat load at ideal, no air flow, temps climb, it cuts out the a/c compressor... sounds like typical electric fan failure. A few days later I got around to taking a look at it, there is no electric fan, its just the single belt driven fan with the hydraulic clutch. I didn’t remember off the top of my head but I was assuming there was an electric push fan out in the front of the a/c condenser as a supplement to the pull fan on the engine, not the case.

I started checking temps and testing components in the cooling system, and determined it was in fact an airflow issue. I loosen up and the radios to pull it back and low and behold, about 1/3 of the radiator face was blocked from flowing air. Gave it a good cleaning and it’s good to go.

This shit was all over


Rinsing it down after the first round of cleaning and it was raining chunks of gross stuff.


First of 2 rounds of cleaning complete


I collected most of the stuff that came off the face of the radiator and it was enough for 3 little handfuls.






Nasty stuff, but the 4Runner is happy now.

 

Dude, for the first time today I saw this thread from the beginning. I clicked "Like" so many times my finger hurts. This is my "Like All" post What an excellent log of your adventures, with such great pics. Well done!

 

Thanks, and yeah there’s definitely no shortage of content in here lol

 

That reminds me that I need to clean my tacoma's radiator. It been a couple years now. Also need to get my son to check the 4runner, since he's driving it.

 

The Gaylord Palms? I went there with my wife and kids for Xmas of 2019. She had been there for work before but it was my first time. That place was really cool. Also really enjoying this thread. Motivating me to do some things I've been meaning to do. Thanks, keep it up.

 

Yup. Awesome place. We got like 4 days 3 nights there in an upgraded room for free. I’m platinum elite through Marriot with more points than I know with.

But that’s awesome to hear I was able to provide some motivation, part of my goal with this thread is to inspire.

 

It’s always nice when the first stop is the liquor store and by the time you’re done running errands you come home to cold beer!

 

Time to see what all the hype is about...

Diode Dynamics SS3 Pro. First impression: the look, the feel, the materials used, the overall quality and fit and finish is not on the same level as the Baja Designs Squadrons. They are expensive but they kinda feel like cheap knockoffs.



(The SS3s are going in the Highlander, the Squadron Pros are staying in the T4R)

 

Is the housing plastic?

 

The DD housing is cast aluminum with plastic mounting brackets. The BD housing is machined aluminum with metal mounting brackets.

 

Hey, it’s like I actually know things sometimes...

 

Looks like doing your homework paid off. Lawsuit or none, I wouldn't want to deal with a problematic vehicle. Good call!

 

This is a big reason many of us got 4Runners. The combination of proven reliability, longevity and capability (snow, off road, cargo capacity, towing) is very hard to beat.

 

It’s finally time! It’s been 6 months and 14 days since I ordered my Southern Style Offroad Trailgater, after a mandatory COVID shutdown and closing shop for a hurricane, exactly 28 weeks later it is FINALLY shipping out via freight with scheduled Friday delivery.

 

@Agent_Outside This thread is amazing Sir. I need to explore other threads more often. You've packed quite a bit of mods and adventure in just a few years!! Wish I lived out there, tired of flat Florida. Glad to see the American family getting it done. My Son is 31 now and a good dude, but I do miss that age yours is at. We had a blast. Looking forward to more posts!

 

Thanks, I appreciate it. Honestly when I travel for work it’s not uncommon that I sit and scroll through here thinking about going home. I’m down your way quite often and I get it, I truly despise Florida. I don’t like it hot, I hate humidity, and I’m not a beach person lol. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’m typically down there for summer.

I really feel like I’m lucky to raise a kid in this day and age where a camera is always in your pocket. Its so easy to document memories nowadays. I do a coffee table book for each year as a photo album of sorts. I’m really glad I have taken as many videos as I have as well. I see these memories pop up from
A couple years back with videos from that tiny little voice learning to express himself and it just melts my heart. He’s definitely at a fun age.

 

I read a book to my Son every night as I tucked him in and those memories for me are priceless, and the bond is still there today. Keep up the great work brother, we create our Children's positive future, minute by minute.

 

So that didn’t pan out....

I had told them a couple weeks ago I was going out town for work on a specific date and I needed it to come before then or they will need to sit on it for a while until I’m back and then ship it. They said it’ll be here on the 11th. The tracking number showed the 14th, that’s not going to work, I will not be here to accept the shipment. They decided pay the $436 additional charge to expedite the freight shipping to get it here while I’m still here. Awesome. about 1/2 an hour later they call me to tell me they messed up and they shipped the wrong bumper to my house. They sent an integrated hitch bumper when I ordered the bolt on hitch version. So it looks like I’m not going to have it in my hands anytime soon.

 

I had to go all the way to page 9 of the 5th GEN section to find this thread, you Sir, have been slacking

 

Long 7 week work rotation before the baby comes. I go back home tomorrow.

 

Well be safe and congrats on the baby. Bored at work and need new stuff to look through

 

Thanks. I have plans but I’m waiting for Black Friday sales to start buying stuff. I’m hoping to more or less “finish” the 4Runner by spring.

actually that might be a bit optimistic, I don’t know how much money I’ll actually dump in it with a newborn.

 

So I was thinking I’d be working on installing my Trailgater around this time but that’s STILL not going very well.

Here’s the timeline so far:

-Week 0, 02/26/2020 - order placed with 16-18 week lead time.

-Week 13, 05/27/2020 - order status still showed materials ordered, got a status update of “if I had guess it would be another month or maybe 1.5”. First estimate for completion = 17-19 weeks.

-Week 15.5, 06/12/2020 - “you’re 3 bumpers away from being in the welding station.”

-Week 19, 07/01/2020 - “your bumper should be going in the welding queue here before the end of the day with 3 other bumpers”, meaning zero progress has been made and it’s no closer than it was at the update 3.5 weeks ago.

-Week 22, 07/30/2020 - “your bumper is being pieced together today, and will be ground down and have it’s accessories made next week. You’re prob looking at a week or two to have all the parts made and powder coated.” Second estimate for completion = 23-24 weeks.

-Week 25, 08/17/2020 - “your bumper will be at powder sometime this week and will be ready to ship out in 1 week.” Third estimate for completion = 26 weeks.

-Week 26, 08/25/2020 - 6 MONTH update, “just waiting for powder coat to catch up and your bumper will be done.” “Any day now we will be contacting you about shipping.”

-Week 27, 09/03/2020 - followed up since it had been at powder coating over a week, and informed them in 10 days I was leaving on a business trip and if it wasn’t delivered by then it was going to need to wait until November before I would be back home to sign for it.

The response back was “We can schedule your shipment out of here for September 8th, and it would get there by Sept 11th according to the companies projection date.”

-Week 28, 09/08/2020 - get an email that it “Will be going out today!”

-Week 28, 09/09/2020 - I asked for tracking info which they provided, it showed the arrival date missing the timeline for me to be in town.

-Week 28, 09/10/2020 - They paid to expedite the shipping to make sure it was going to be there by the 13th before I left on a 7 week business trip. A short while later they called me to inform me that they mixed up the orders and they had shipped me the wrong bumper. They had the freight company bring it back. I was under the impression that my bumper was there but they were going to need to wait to ship it until I was home again.

-Week 35.5, 10/25/2020 - I emailed them letting them know I I was coming home the end of the week and we’re good to go with shipping to have it arrive on Halloween or shortly after. (3 emails with no response over the next week - I guess they had some cyber attack thing take down part of their system)

Week 36, 11/4/2020 - their GM informed me metal was on order for bumper.... apparently the customer who was scheduled to have his bumper installed came in before his bumper, which was sent to me, was back at their shop. So they installed my bumper on that vehicle and ordered materials to make me a new one. Metal should be arriving this Friday and the GM is going to send me daily updates with pics of the progress.

As of right now it’s been 8 months and 10 days in and they are waiting on materials to build my bumper. To be fair they did get shut down for a little while because of COVID, they have apologized profusely, and they did give me the option of having the wrong bumper that was sent - I ordered the bolt on hitch that doesn’t requiring cutting and notching the frame, they had sent an integrated hitch version that does require cutting the frame.

Overall though I have to say I’m pretty pissed with how all of this is going. Right now I kinda hate that I love their products.