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

Wow that’s extremely frustrating! I’m just curious what company and which bumper you decided to go with?

 

I mentioned it at the top, but you might not be familiar with it. the Trailgater is Southern Style Offroad’s high clearance single swing arm steel rear bumper with a tailgate built in. For how we use the vehicle their bumper best suits our needs.

on the bright side they followed up already and the metal that was supposed to come Friday showed up today.

 

I must’ve missed it but I just wanted to let you know this thread is amazing. I have been following you for a while on mods and adventures, thank you for sharing. Looking forward to see that bumper on your 4Runner.

 

So I know this thread has been kind of lacking lately. I addressed it a bit earlier but with a baby on the way I went on a LONG 7 week work rotation. I’ve been buying and stock piling parts while I was gone, especially once I made the decision that I was going to keep this 4Runner and NOT buy a new 5th gen to swap everything over to.

Here’s the current list of what I have purchased, either sitting here or on order waiting for delivery for both vehicles.

Highlander

• 12v Battery and terminal protector pads
• OEM tow hitch
• Bosch Icon wiper blades
• Audew jump pack
• Nokian WR G4 SUV all weather tires (not to be confused with all season)
• Thinkware Q800 Pro 2 Channel dash cam and hardwire kit

4Runner

• Serpentine belt
• Cooling system refresh: radiator fan clutch, water pump, water inlet, thermostat, thermostat housing, gaskets, seals, and coolant
• Trans service: pan gasket, strainer, strainer o-ring, WS trans fluid, crush washers
• Front, center, rear diff services: 75W90 GL-5 synthetic fluid and crush washers for all 3 diffs
• Spark plugs
• Lower strut mounting hardware for all 4 corners (one front is rusted/seized in place and apparently the rears have a tendency to fall out...? I think people just don’t know how to properly torque a bolt but they are cheap so I’ll toss a spare in with the tools)
• Clock spring
• Brake pad shim kit and anti rattle clips for all 4 corners (I did the pads/rotors not to far back, you reuse the hardware but they had seen better days. There’s minor noise so I’ll swap all the other pieces)
• Southern Style Offraod Trailgater single swing arm high clearance rear steel bumper with camera, license plate, and license plate light relocation
• Baja Designs S2 sport flood/scene lights for the rear bumper - white reverse light on the right, red rear foglight on the left
• Toytec extended braided stainless steel brake lines for all 4 corners
• Toytec RCCXD-P extra duty Superflex rear springs

There’s a few more things I plan on picking up during Black Friday sales.

 

I don’t think I followed up on the Baja Designs vs Diode Dynamic topic.

I’ve had a Baja Designs Squadron Pro amber driving combo foglight kit on my 4Runner for a couple years now and I love them. I was in the market for another foglight upgrade for my Highlander. Baja Designs didn’t list a kit for it, I could have cross referenced foglight housings or checked to see in my stock 4R housings fit in the Highlander before buying BD, but at the end of the day Diode Dynamics had a kit listed and Baja Designs didn’t. So I decided I’d save myself the trouble of figuring it out and see what all the hype was about with the Diode Dynamics SS3 foglight kit so I picked up a Pro Amber SAE kit. I thought it would be a good opportunity to check them out side by side and get a bit of an unbiased comparison.

Once I opened the DD lights and they were in my hands for the first time it was honestly a bit of a letdown, they were underwhelming, bordering on disappointing. The DD lights just look and feel like cheap knock offs. The cast aluminum housings makes them look very crude and low quality in comparison to BDs nice precision machined aluminum housings. It’s hard to convey, but in person, holding them, the BD lights in general just look and feel like they have a higher level of build quality and fit and finish. The DD lights almost look like they have a plastic housing. Diode Dynamics has refuted that, they claim their build quality and the materials used are on right on par with Baja Designs, however Baja Designs has a lifetime warranty and Diode Dynamics does not... take that how you will.

The BD lights have a pigtail harness coming out compared to a small jumper harness on the DD’s. The DDs use a 2 pin Deutsch connection directly in the back of the housing, it’s a rectangular plug but they used a round seal on the harness, one housing plugged in just fine, the other side I had to use a pocket screwdriver to tuck in the seal to keep from pinching it. You also need to test the lights before reassembling because the connection to the stock wiring can be plugged in either direction but will only work one way (to be fair it’s been too long since I installed BD, I don’t remember if they were the same way). The Diode Dynamics were easy to plug into the stock harness whereas the Baja Designs were so f’n tight you questioned if something is wrong with it when trying to plug them in. DD’s 1 piece mounting bracket is a better design than the BD brackets, however BD uses metal brackets and DD uses plastic. Realistically the plastic is fine because regardless of what the brackets are made out of, its being mounted to plastic on the bumper, but for expensive lights I would expect metal.

In terms of performance, it’s not fair to make a direct comparison since one is an SAE beam pattern and one is a driving combo beam pattern, they both have different applications. One beam pattern is meant to be used on the street and focuses light into a legal area, the other is 100% offroad use only and aren’t legal or designed for public roadways. The Baja driving combo squadron pros have insane output, I feel like they put out more usable light then high beams and low beams combined. The Diode Dynamics SAE SS3 pro lights are very impressive in their output and usability, they may look and feel on the cheap, but the output is top notch. They really filled out the scene through the windshield, it was substantially brighter and wider than with the factory fogs, massive difference and a big upgrade. With them aimed to match the factory foglight cutoff there’s no gaps in the lighting.

Final thoughts - The Diode Dynamics SS3 Pro lights are a great upgrade that perform really well, however, in my opinion there are they have a few short comings. The wiring, the cheap look and feel, plastic brackets, the comparatively short warranty that also gets reduced further if you change the beam pattern or lens... but they are very good lights. With owning both it’s my opinion that if you’re already spending $320, I would just spend more and get the Baja Designs lights - personally I just can’t get past how cheap they look and feel. The extra cost for the Baja quality and lifetime warranty seem worth it to me, especially when you can pick them up during group buy pricing, but you can make a strong argument for the value of the Diode Dynamics.

SS3s in my Highlander
https://youtu.be/Ccnh_YxeanU

Baja pro driving combo
https://youtu.be/LgWlS8jm6iY

 

IMHO the warranty speaks volumes. Never having any experience with BD, I can't speak about they're quality, but there are only so many companies that offer that kind of warranty in the offroad industry.
Having purchased plenty of Rigid products for my 5th gen, I wanted one for my 4th gen. I bought a discontinued Rigid 20" on Amazon from a 3rd party seller (yea I know, mistake). It didn't work of course.
I called Rigids customer service just to do some investigation for my amazon claim, and the gentlemen says, "read me the number off the power lead". He then responds, "Yep, it's one of ours, send it in we'll fix it for free and go through it to make sure there is nothing else wrong with it. You get it here, we'll ship it back". So for the price of one way shipping I got it fixed, instead of messing with an amazon claim and possibly getting frustrated in the process.
So in short, I have heard nothing but good things about BD, and there is most likely a reason why. There are dozens of cheaper alternatives out there, but when it comes to lighting for off road, I like the set it and forget it quality of a good company.

 

Flying home


This was election day, we voted dirt!

 

Sometimes a cheap asshole... I’ve had this in my cart on Amazon for like a year and finally pulled the trigger on it. It’s sad, I know, but I’m pretty excited to try this out. Maybe it’s just me but I have a hell of a time actually getting grease to go into the driveshaft fittings.

 

Some days are better than others when it comes to that. There are times I swore I felt it snap down on the fitting lol. I recently started to loosen the actual fitting on the G-Gun a half turn and then tighten it real snug on the zerk.

I would really like to find a right angle fitting that seats properly on the zerk for doing my Califab lower link bushings, instead of having to drop them down out of their cradle. The ICON lowers on my 5th gen don't even have a zerk fitting, so they have to come down and get disassembled anyway.

I'm way OCD when it comes to grease intervals lol. Just talking about it makes me want break out the work lights.

Oh and Welcome back! I can relate to being on the road for weeks at a time. Most I ever did was 6 cities in 6 weeks with only my travel days for down time. 40+ days in a row ain't easy.

 

May I ask how you're doing the rear fog in red? Lens cover or some other solution? I'm assuming independent switch for it? I miss this feature/function in poor weather from my VW/Audis.

 

The right side reverse light I’ll probably just tie directly into the reverse light circuit since it only pulls .9 amps of power. Baja Designs has colored lenses available so it’s a simple lens swap to have it red.

I haven’t decided how I want to tie that one in yet. Either a separate switch or I’ll tie it into the front fogs. I just picked up an OEM bumper cover to have as a spare, I’m going to cut my current one up and add a Hefty plate bumper, when I do that I’m going to change up the front lights a bit. The shitty Rago light bar has to go, I literally never it.

Currently besides low beams and high beams the switches are setup from left to right as follows
1- foglights
2 - ditch lights
3 - light bar
4 - left side lights
5 - right side lights

I’m thinking I’ll end up replacing the light bar with the current front foglights (pro driving combo) and another set of pods. Change the current set of fogs to SAE lights, maybe tied together with the rear fog light.

1 - SAE front fogs
2 - rear fog
3 - ditch lights and front pods
4 - left side lights
5 - right side lights

or

1 - front SAE lights with rear fog
2 - ditch lights and front pods
3 - spare
4 - left side lights
5 - right side lights

The way I use it I don’t feel the need to have non street legal lights that go the same direction on separate switches. The not legal fogs for example I didn’t run on the street and I never use them off road without the ditch lights on as well to further widen the field of view. Those might as well be setup together on 1 switch.

I’ve also considered wiring SAE front fogs with the rear fog but utilizing the factory fog light stalk switch to cut the rear out if I wanted to. I’d be able to run the front and the rear, or the front, just not the rear by itself. But I don’t see a scenario where I’d want the rear on without the fronts.

 

Thanks, it’s pretty typical. My work is all travel. I generally leave for 3 weeks, come home for a weekend, leave for another 3, then come home and have a month off. Or 4 weeks with a weekend home in the middle then 2-3 weeks off. With COVID though and post travel quarantine I haven’t been doing the weekends home in the middle of a rotation, that makes it hard because they feel so much longer.

 

I used to enjoy the adventure of it all, but I'm pushing 60 yrs and at 6'6", air travel is almost torture these days. When we got back to work, Covid allowed me to drive to a lot of gigs this year but that has it's own logistical problems as well. All things considered, I'm still very fortunate, and feel terrible for the thousands of people who aren't back to work yet because this crap.

 

Are the Limited fogs mounted the same as the other models?

 

Yes

 

I liked this post. Not because I like the contents of the post, but I like the thoroughness. I actually didn't want to read it all because it was so long, but I'm glad I did. Those pictures....ouch! Maybe I won't hold out for Prinsu on the BF deals this year....

 

Metal arrived


Construction began










Headed for powdercoat

 

It’s funny to say it, but we literally made and delivered a baby faster than they’ve made an delivered a bumper.

 

LOL! Congratulations!

 

Huge congrats brother!

 

Seriously. Congrats!

 

Thanks guys

 

Parts are really starting to pile up!

My son said he wanted to replace the clock spring with me. He wants to use his little camera to take pictures of each step how to do it, then print them out, and staple them all together so we can send a copy to everyone in the world. That way everyone will know how to do it should the need arise lol

 

I’ll get you my mailing address

 

Here it goes...

Clockspring replacement as seen through the eyes of a 4 year old, documented with a kid's digital camera.


Remove the plastic covers on both sides of the steering wheel


Heres a close up so you can see it better


They pop right out with a pocket screwdriver




Unbolt the airbag


Unplug the 2 stage ignitors




Remove this steering wheel


Use a pick to score the steering wheel and the steering column shaft to aid with proper alignment during reassembly


After you mark them remove the center nut


Unplug the connectors and wiggle the steering wheel off.


Next is the plastic trim pieces


Remove the screws


Split the clamshell


The clockspring is now fully exposed


Unplug the harnesses




Release the tabs and remove the clock spring


It's out, halfway there!

 

Install the new clockspring and plug in all the connectors while carefully listening for the click on each connection


Pull the grenade pin that's installed in the new part to keep it from spinning during shipping


Feed the wires through and reinstall the steering wheel.


Make sure to keep the grenade pin forever because it's soooo cool, try to refrain from stabbing the touchscreen radio display with it


Tighten the steering wheel


Ready to install the airbag and column trim


Plug in the bag


Then get distracted by the garage heater and wander off when its almost finished


But make sure you’re back in time to give the horn its first test

 

There’s a couple fittings on my 4Runner that are at kinda speed angles and I seem to get a couple pumps of grease on the fitting before I get any in the fitting trying to get the angle just right. I finally spent the money on Lock N Lube fitting for my grease gun.... I feel stupid for waiting so long to get this. It’s works 100% as advertised. 12 fittings between the JBA arms and all the factory points and not a drop of grease outside of the zero fittings.

https://youtu.be/8-ce_tFXOVc

 

Another thing I should have done a long time ago but didn’t want to commit the money to - transmission fillers!

With the 4Runner and the Highlander both running the same transmission fluid and the same differential fluid I finally bought 2 fillers for home. The capacity is kinda small but the convenience is definitely worth it.

One is dedicated to WS trans fluid and one is dedicated to 75W90 GL5 gear oil. You take the orange cap off. Fill the reservoir with a funnel. Pump the bottle up to 10-15 psi. Pick a hose attachment - the 90 degree hook is perfect for diffs. Open the valve and sit back as it pushes all the fluid through. No trying to line up and squeeze bottles or paying a bunch of money for boutique fluid in bags, it’s quick, it’s easy, and there’s no mess!

Filling the front diff on the 4Runner


Knocking out the trans service on the Highlander

 

Busy couple days, with the help of my 4 year old on his thanksgiving break we’ve accomplished the following on the 4Runner:
-Replaced OEM front brake pad anti-rattle shims and clips
-Cleaned and lubed the front brakes
-Installed Toytec front stainless steel brake lines
-Replaced OEM rear pads pad anti-rattle shims and slides
-Cleaned and lubed the rear brakes
-Adjusted parking brake tension
-Brake fluid flush
-Rear differential service
-Center differential service
-Front differential service
-Full transmission service (including making a legit detailed how-to)
-Clock spring replacement
-Tire rotation

Still a bit left to go, I still have spark plugs and a major cooling system refresh, then just deep clean and degrease the whole underbody before I put the skids back and wait for my bumper to eventually show up. I’m not confident that I’ll be able to get the 4Runner in the garage anymore once there’s a swing arm with a spare tire on it out back so trying to knock out as much as possible now. It can be “challenging” having a helper sometimes but as long as he’s interested and wanting to learn and help and use tools, I’ll never exclude him in the name of efficiency.

 

How did you adjust the parking break tension?

I've read there are a couple of different ways to do it.