Gatorgrl's Grand Gen2 4Runner makeover

LCE performance makes a complete kit

 

I’m with vfrpilot, take a look at LCE performance. I’ve ordered a few things the past few months. Great service and fast shipping. Kinda my go to now before I order from anywhere else.

 

If you spring for the Summit racing K&N-FIPK copy you get that pipe but its money!... The other alternative is get the $25 ebay cold air intake kit from China with blue, black or red silicon couplers and aluminum tubes.

As for the 31" rubber. Both my sons 90 and my 91 have the swing away tire carriers on the back and I think that is the option that you needed to carry the 31" spare on the 2nd Gens. Which is not to forget the R&P are 4.56:1 for the 31" rubber on the 15x7 rims. Just some food for thought!...

 

Well its just about time for the 4Runner to come out of its fresh paint hibernation and get its final buff!
I miss driving it.

On a side note, I have this little neighbor guy who has a 3rd Gen 4Runner that he has had since new. He drives it very little as he works from home and doesn't go out much. And when he does drive, its like Grandma used to drive to church. That poor thing I am sure is clogged with carbon. He also revealed the other day to us that he hasn't had the oil changed in well over a year. His liberal logic is because it also has a leaking valve cover, all he has to do it add oil every so often and it is basically changing its own oil. I am sure that poor engine is covered in oil mud and sludge! I even offered to do the oil change for free, I hate to see the poor Yota treated like that, but he won't even take me up on it. Guess he will just keep driving it till it stops.
He also wants to move to Portugal and thinks he can sell it, unless they peek under the hood.
People kill me sometimes.

 

She sure looks good all prettied up ! I hope you get to settle in and enjoy it after all the work you’ve done !!! That’s my biggest fear now is somebody hitting me, my truck has never been in an accident.

 

Your not safe, even if your parked in your own garage. Ask me how i know.

 

Hahaha....ain’t that the truth ! And I hope you don’t mind me saying Welcome Home Sir, Thank You.

 

Well I repainted the roof rack and re-installed it along with the wipers and rear wing. Can't wait to get it out of that damned shop and start enjoying her again.

 

Drove my baby home tonight. She is back in the stable and looks like a million bucks!
I was sure hoping to use my idiot horn on the way home but the situation, thankfully, never presented itself.
She has been at the shop since March 16th, when we got blasted into.
Now I need to focus on her sound system...which is currently original.
I need better speakers, cd and satellite radio.

 

May I recommend a 5 channel amplifier that is the cheapest one you can find on Crutchfield. It is the Soundstream Picasso Nano PN5.640D. Hubby will need to build a subwoofer enclosure and a 12 inch polypropylene sub-woofer driver can be had at Parts Express for $25. It is the MDF that is expensive in building a 1.5 cu.ft. enclosure. I am feeding this amp from an older Kenwood head unit which came with the 4Runner and it has a CD. The bias and gain adjustments on the Picasso 5 channel amp allows the OEM speaker locations to be dialed in and I am greatly pleased with the accoustic result of this addition to the 4Runner. The Picasso lives under the passenger side front seat. The front dash OEM driver locations are only good for mid range and treble reproduction and the load space side speakers can be coaxed to do the same but at 5-1/4 they will never produce the dynamic range needed for solid bass reproduction. With the Kenwood cranked to 25 or 27 on the volume display the wing mirrors do tend to shake the glass a bit. I have the sub-woofer pointed into the back of the rear seats with a ratchet strap over it to keep it from flying about when off roading (see picture). I also have a bluetooth adapter feeding into the aux jack but the dynamic range is not as good as it is when I run a CD in the head unit.

Cheerio,
Andrew

 

Congrats, bet it feels great !

 

Wow, you are very lucky. Mine has been in 2. The first one a Ford F350 slammed into the back of me at 35 mph. Caused almost $10K in damage back in 1996. Another time a guy came out of a parking spot at ramming speed and caused a few thousand damage to my front end.

 

Thanks Parker. Where did you mount that sub? Behind the back seats?

 

Here’s a pic of my new Kenwood deck and kappa speakers, I love this setup, the Kenwood sounds really good and has plenty of power to handle the kappas.

 

Been thinking of mounting one of my 31's on the roof as a spare since it won't fit underneath. What racks do you guys like?

 

It's not easy getting them up and down off the roof though. Maybe think about a hitch carrier? I have one of these on my 5th gen. It's a Knuckle Bone by Detours of Maine. Works well and is pretty solid.

 

The problem with a hitch carrier is it will interfere with my tailgate and my bike rack.

 

I had the same problem with my Range Rover when I put 265/75-R16's on the OEM rims. The load space under the lift up panel would not allow me to stash the spare in there so I fabricated a spare tire carrier that is very akin to the OEM Toyota 4Runner design. The only difference was that I spanned the entire tail gate with hinge plates on the DS and a cam-over toggle clamp at the rest seat on the PS to secure the thing when I closed it. I removed this carrier from the rover when I sent it to scrap yard. However the hinge plates were J&B welded and pop riveted to the sheetmetal on the RR. The exterior panels are aluminum on the P38A Range Rovers. I ran this tire carrier for over a decade and had plenty of off-road trips without any fatigue issues. Unfortunately the plates went with the rover to the scrap yard. I used 3/8" heim-joints as the hinges so any misalignment would be accommodated when I finally had set the plates onto the body. This also allows you to adjust the gate so that it lines up on the other side at the rest with a tire on the thing posing added deflection due to the weight of the tire and wheel. By double nutting the heim into a hole plate that is welded into the tubes ends you have infinite adjustment to dial in the alignment.

Sourcing a Toyota OEM tire carrier would be the better solution if you can find one? I would think the body work is likely to have the blind nuts in the bodies inner reinforcement structure so all you would need to do is open up the outer skin to access them with a center punch and a drill bit once you know were they are. With the hinge from the OEM carrier in hand this would seem relatively easy to do perhaps?...

As for the 1.5 cu-ft sub-woofer box it is free to roam about behind the rear seats. Thus the need for a ratchet strap for securing it to the carpet.

 

Have you searched salvage yards for a 4R that came with 31’s? Mine came with 31’s and the spare tire mount is larger and easily fits a 31”, it looks like a 33” would fit. It also looks like it just bolts in? An easy way to tell is the crank goes in at an angle to the driver side to a 90 degree gearbox and a shaft to the center of the spare to the the down mechanism.

 

I was able to put the 31 into the spare spot if I held it at an angle while it went up. The issue was it would then interfere in the travel of the panhard bar as it stood out just a bit on the other side of the bar.

 

Well my hubby guilted me into taking our baby out for a bit of tomorrow in the Yucca Pen park. I was nervous with her being freshly painted and all but he said he was just going to get a me a sticker that said "POSER" then. Pride stepped in and vanity had to take a seat. Wish us luck!

Happy 4th everyone!!!!!!!

 

!!!!!! HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY !!!!!!


Btw: the 4runners is across the street, out of the picture.

 

Happy Independence Day !

 

Had an awesome time out with the boys doing a lil overlanding.

 

I do have to say she did very well and yes I was nervous about her new paint job. We tried to stay out of the ruts in the puddles as I didn't want to get high centered. She floated effortlessly thru the mud and sand. The bigger heavier guys in our group had to work a little harder than we did. I did decide she needs some wheel arch flares to keep the mud down. The underside was as clean as a whistle, but the sides were covered.

 

Turned out beautifully!!!

 

Took her out to Picayune Strand State Forest today for a lil fun. She did great!

 

My poor hubby has jokes. He looks up from his computer and says we should sell the 4Runner and buy a beater so I won't care so much about abusing it. Silly silly boy. It's what I do....I obsess over my rides and make them perfect, or at least I try. I can't have a shitbox and leave it as a shitbox....not gonna happen.
He is soo funny....NOT!

 

I'd say you should beat him, but him being a cop probably precludes you being able to do so

 

Um dear we are both retired LE. It would be a fair fight. Lol. Was tempted to throw my shoe at him though.....