New to 4runners Documenting Complete Maintenance and Modification Thread!

Please allow myself to Introduce…..
Myself.
Name is Clank and I am a long time fan/owner of Toyota vehicles.
Just picked up a Army Green ORP without a moonroof!
I hope this will be the start of a long document life of the 4Runner!

 

Pics First!



By the way the dealer told me they have another one coming in 9 days and it hasn’t been spoken for yet. Army Green.
Stone Mountain Toyota. Can’t say much about the dealer but I think I got a fair deal considering.

 

That’s it for now. I hope to be back to fill in the back story and start documenting maintenance and mods.

Back Story: Skip this if you just want the facts.

I have been a long time land cruiser fan.
I have owned 2 80 series and 1 (still own) 100 series land cruisers. I have also mixed in a LS400, two Avalons, TRD off-road Tacoma and a Prius.

The land cruisers and LS are what did it for me though. I studied Toyota’s design philosophy for both the land cruisers and the LS. I have even read the Toyota way…. Twice! Needles to say that all my friends see me as the annoying Toyota Fanboy.


I have had company trucks almost my entire carrier but a little over a year ago I landed a regional job with a construction materials mining company. They offered a stipend and mileage in lieu of a company vehicle the caveat was that the vehicle had to meet certain criteria (my old cruisers just wouldn’t do it).
Whelp.
This meant it was time to buy my first new vehicle (not sure if I have ever owned a vehicle with less than a 100k miles).
Obviously I was going to by a Toyota but I was torn between a 4Runner, a Tacoma, or a Tundra. The Tundra was top but the price and poor milage excluded it pretty quick.
I opted for the Tacoma over the 4Runner because of the bed. Almost immediately I realized my mistake. The Tacoma is great but the cab is so small! Wife two kids and two dogs wasn’t happening.

I drove the Tacoma for 18 months and 40k miles until I just couldn’t do it anymore. So up for sale it went (I got more for it than I paid for it!).

And now this beaut! How I landed this one is another story.

My original plan was to do performance based maintenance (using lab results) starting after the break-in period and that’s the point of this thread. I hope to keep it updates with all mods and maintenance including lab results.
I still think I am going go this direction but the extended maintenance plan is very tempting!

As far as mods go. I learned that I am into adventure travel more than “off-roading”. “Overlanding” to me means crossing sub Saharan Africa in a 70 series land cruiser.
My mods will be based on ability to get me there as reliably and comfortably as possible with keeping in mind that I will be pounding highways (roughly 35k a year).

 

That army green...mmmm. Those gray pro wheels... yeah, that looks good. Congrats!

 

Are those nitto's on it already?

Looks great.

 

Welcome to a great forum and congrats.

 

Thanks!

First Mod has been ordered.
A set of SSO sliders (Back ordered 2+ months!)
Pulled carpet mats and replaced them with TRD PRO mats that I had the dealer throw in.
Also de-chromed with OEM black out kit (also thrown in).
I’m really starting to line the look of the GunMetal wheels on the green. I had ordered black and gray showed up. I was peeved at first but the dealer made it right.

 

Welcome from Wisconsin! I'm liking the gun metal wheels also.

 

Very nice ride! I was going to suggest ditching the Predator steps, but I see you already took care of that...also, one more vote for the gunmetal wheels. (Completely) blacked out is so overdone...IMO. The emblems look good, though, on the army green.

 

Love it! Excited to see what you do with her

 

nice find, it's hard to find these without moonroof. Does it have KDSS?

 

It does not have KDSS. I have mixed feeling about that system. I remember reading about high maintenance on high mileage units. Improved handling would be nice though.

 

K, I don’t need to be that jealous then. I keep finding ORP in AG with KDSS and the dam moon roof.

 

+1 on those rims with Army Green.

Looks good.

 

Not even a thousand miles and I’m already putting her to work!


I even “had to” put her in 4 wheel drive. I used the A-track and Crawl Control as well.

Some observations over the Tacoma.
It seems a little heavier off-road and much softer. Having weight on the rear really helps with rear tire traction. On one hill (steep with loose stone) I would have to engage the locker on the Tacoma but with the 4 runner 4wd was sufficient. It may be the difference in Highway tires and the Terra Grapplers.

Received my first “mod” in the mail last night.
A RAGO antenna mount. I am hoping to use it as a mount for my buggy whip (required by work). It looks stout enough so I hope it will do the trick. I am worried that you have to drill through the plastic on the back and place a bolt the mount to a mounting plate on the other side of the plastic. I will put up pictures when done.

I have already found one “dislike” and I am hoping that I can fix it. I use the satellite imagery from google maps to see where I am in the quarries and get another view of what I am looking at. In the Tacoma all I had to do is hit the map button and it pulled up (as long as my phone was plugged in). With the 4Runner because of the onboard navigation the map button just pulls up the onboard map. It takes a few steps to get to the google map. I feel like there should be a way to set it so that it pulls up the phone map.
Any ideas?

Also looking for recommendations on seat covers. I am looking hard at the Carhartt and the Clazzio covers. I normally would just go for the Carhartt but it seems a shame to cover these beautiful seats (some don't like the softex but they are the niciest seats I have ever had). with Canvas.

Looking into running dedicated 12v to the back as well. I am thinking of running 10g wire to a rear fuse panel from the battery. I hope to have built a portable powerbox by the end of the year. So the plan is to plug the fridge into the truck poser on short trips and plug the powerbox into the the truck battery on longer trips (the fridge would run off the power box)

 

Welcome to a great forum and congrats.
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I need a towel after looking at those pictures.

Well done.

 

Beautiful! Congratulations