What have you done to your 5th Gen 4Runner today?

Waxed the front end to try and remove all the bug splatter.

 

You waxed it to get rid of the bug splatter?

you should wash it, claybar, then wash again if necessary, then get any rough spots again with claybar, then wax. I would never recommend using wax to clean. It is meant to protect.

 

Did some camping and fishing on the Mogollon rim!

 

Yes sir, cars were tanks back then, i miss steel bumpers lol.

Regarding the bottle jack, the amount of lift shouldnt matter, unless you have suspension that increases total down travel. So Im kind of surprised a block and the factory bottle jack couldnt get your tire up. Maybe your shocks gave you some more down travel?

 

Washed the 4Runner first, then waxed the front end

 

Awesome!

 

Okay so to be clear this was for the rear measurement (not the front and since I just put everything away I am not going back out to re-test). I am not saying using the stock jack on the axle won’t work as that is where I use it.

Here are my findings:
With the jack all the way down there is roughly 9 inches to the frame.

(Sons hand in the picture. Mine are a bit more hairy. )

Then after what felt like 1000 rotations I finished up the first section of the bottle jack and there was 3.5 inches remaining.



This tells me that roughly the bottle jack has a 5.5” neck (11 inches in total with both necks fully extended) so no I don’t believe my vehicle will lift the front at that location. As you will see in the pictures I am fully armored so I have other places to jack up beyond factory that are lower. I estimate this would not pickup the front on my vehicle (using the frame) as I have roughly 1.5” extra on the bottom with bigger tires and I have a bit more down travel suspension (but not much).

Anyways back to pics and the tire is not even close. But how much further???


I got my other bottle jack out to pick it up higher.


You can see based off the picture I am barely clear:


But surprisingly the front was lifted up and more than the rear (this is why solid axles are better off-road for sure):


for the final photo let’s see how it looks:

 

Great posts, GrantA and McSpaz! I love when people actually get stuff out and test it, figure out the truth, and then take pics. I almost took my bottle jack out just last week, but I'm def keeping it now.

And one of the reasons I got a hilift is because one time when I really needed my bottle jack, I found one of the seals had blown, so it would only rise 4 inches. Had to ask a Jeeper for help.

 

They are both good tools and there is no need to abandon either.

 

Yeah about a month ago, I had a random rock crack my sunroof while visiting a friend in Arkansas (I live in Mississippi). Cost me about $800 for a new sunroof. Still feeling that right now.

https://www.4runners.com/threads/wh...h-gen-4runner-today.2261/page-670#post-355899

 

Your going to like them. They are nice wheels. I bought the steel plate to protect my wheels and they surely have. However, when it rains or I wash the 4Runner water has no way out and just puddles. That is my only gripe and I wish they put little fin type things in the lip of the wheel to help eject water when driving because driving doesn’t help (unless driving a long distance that might help).

 

Those look great!

 

Tinted all windows, put TRD with K02’s. Really changed the look.

 

Science! Lol. Thanks for the verification pics!
Also, nice to see the little one out there learning from dad

You mentioned that you usually use the axle itself as a jack point. I’ve concluded the same after messing around with it the other day. If it’s to simply remove a tire, jacking at the axle is only a few turns once the jack makes contact. Bone simple, and it’s really the best way to do it on the street (unless your wheels falls off like in my situation lol).

Im sure there might be an off-road situation where you might need to jack at the rear frame. But I’m honestly struggling to think of one lol. That doesnt mean much with my limited off road experience, so somebody chime in if they have an example.

I think those pictures you took really show the biggest drawback to jacking the rear up by the frame. It shows that the lifting point on the frame is in a really bad spot leverage-wise. It lifts the front of vehicle as much as the back! Put another way, the jack is carrying significantly more weight (apparently half of the vehicle’s weight). This means more stored energy (potential danger) if the vehicle rolls off off the jack, or the jack fails.

In comparison, if you jack at the axle, the weight the jack is lifting is almost nothing. If my amateur applied physics knowledge is right, it’s only the weight of the wheel, the outboard portion of the axle assembly, and whatever weight it takes to compress the spring an inch or less (from normal ride height). It’s very apparent when you compare the effort needed to get the tire off the ground.

 

It was fun getting the boys out of the house to work on that together. I hope they learned something as much as me (man the frame is higher than I thought). Yeah it would be cool to get a vehicle scale and measure force applied based off different lifting points. I am really wanting to test the front note with the supplied bottle jack. Next time I am getting the drill out to make all those turns quicker.

oh I also learned that my somewhat new c4 gas skid can hold up a lot of my vehicle so that matters me feel more confident.

 

Have you ever had to make a trailside repair? Been hung up or high centered on something? There are plenty of reasons why you might need to jack from one side or another, front or rear. The truck is stuck and you cannot get to the axle, axle is too close to the rocks, rocks are unstable or the ground too soft.

Gotta say, I think practicing with a hi lift on the street is a wise move. Plenty of room. You figure out how to use the jack in relative safety. As far as off road experience, you can learn by joining a club and go on some runs. I know out here, we have events during the spring and summer months to raise money for clubs. Some of these events have offroad seminars that will teach you how to use winches and how to jack. On club runs, you will probably have to use a rope or strap to tug or even the winch to unfuck things. Navigating mud pits maybe a more extreme example. The point is, you can learn from others how to mitigate the danger when offroading. It may also help you help someone else on the trail--which is most of my experience.

 

Not yet! Lol. Closest I got was a mud pit that was much deeper than I thought. But despite not having mud experience, I had the luck to think to put it in mud/sand mode on multiterrain. I just floored it and let the 4runner do its thing.

Wait…thats not true. There was another time. I blocked this from my memory. The 4runner was only a few months old here , poor thing lol







I fell off an overgrown path, which was solid, into a bog …which I had been warned about. The 4runner sank right down to the frame. We got it out using my buddies winch, but only after an hour of digging and basically cutting through layered mats of muddy grass floating on water until we could get boards under the passenger side wheels. That was the only way to get the wheels up and out when being pulled, otherwise the winch couldnt do it. If that didnt work, our plan B was to call my insurance agent haha. That bog was horrible. I took one step to the side and immediately sank up to my knees. Nothing but a muddy mat of floating grass over water.

Every recovery situation is different, but I think if you have bumpers and sliders that allow the use if a hi-lift, you might as well learn the dangers and learn how to use it well. It’s a tool like any other, always a time and a place. The only thing with a high lift, is that it’s a big tool. So I’d rather have a buddy have one . I dont think Id have the guts to use one on my own, Im prone too many mistakes with this kind of stuff.

I was about to buy a hydraulic bottle jack, but I’ve had some seals go bad on jacks over the years…so that was on the back of my mind too. I decided to finally test my factory jack and realized it’s as capable as I would want, and it didnt have seals to fail. So I called it good, and stopped looking for a hydraulic one to carry on the 4runner. Although @GrantA’s idea of a drill attachment…there’s money in that idea

 

That is a thing already but they use air to lift the jack. I was going to buy one at Napa until I saw the price. It about knocked my socks off…
https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/NLE7912300

Granted they have one at harbor freight. I just don’t trust my life and such with tools like this from harbor freight. But to each his own I am not dogging on anyone. I just am not a huge Pittsburg fan.

 

I am still debating the steel plate. I like the look of them but just not 100% on them just yet.

 

Here are some pics. Granted your running a different color so it will look a little different.

without:


With:


Water puddle problem I was talking about:


oh and one of the few saves the plate has provided:

 

They look really good! 90% off my rim hits have been on the spokes of the SR5 rims, which I think with the RRW's wont happen. But the extra protection is nice

 

But using a drill on the stock bottle jack gives you the advantage of keeping it all mechanical, no hydraulics. If you arent gonna run with the idea, I will haha. I’ll give you full credit lol.

 

It was detail the engine bay today since I had not done it awhile......



Before

 

I did that with my 3rd gen once a year with purple power then hot water from the water heater. Discolored some of the plastic, didn't care after 20 years, I wanted to do my 5th gen but don't really want the plastic Discolored. Yours looks great. How did you do it?

 

what size tires?

 

Finished cleaning after my last trail ride day, and trying to fill some new pinstripes with some ceramic wet wax.






No “pre” photos of the stripes, but they improve a lot. Doesnt hurt as much to look at, and from 5 feet away, I have to look for them.

 

Changed out the factory transmission pan to a PML deep pan: https://www.4runners.com/threads/installation-of-a-pml-deep-transmission-pan.26663/

 

I use straight Simple Green then use black on black trim shine from Chemicals guys

 

Can you provide a link to these?