'14 Limited - Many Minor "Mods", Memories, & Maintenance - Walter

I'm creating a "build" thread primarily for my own documentation's sake, and it will mostly just be the journey of ownership more than specific "mods", but you might enjoy it too! On July 7th of 2021 my wife and I bought our 2014 Limited 4Runner to be our adventure vehicle (& daily) so we named him after Walter Mitty. We were blessed to work with a close friend who had just got it on his lot the day prior and I was the first appt. the following morning. We had no intention of seeking out a 4Runner as we believed they were way too far out of our price range and certainly my wife and I are not "Limited" people haha we weren't loving the chrome, didn't need the 3rd-row seats, etc. He had 1 owner who bought new in 2014, was well serviced for 128k miles, and traded in to the original dealership in 2021 after the 7-year loan was finished. We paid about ~$28k out the door which felt a bit steep, but given the time of purchase with the market and the impeccable quality of maintenance, no rust, no leaks anywhere, very minimal paint repair spots, no accidents, etc... every passing day I believe more firmly that we got an amazing deal.

 

We were planning to begin our ownership 5 days later with a long PNW camping road trip from Kansas, but before we even began our trip I found that the dealership had failed to replace cabin+engine air filters (which was foretelling..) and I somehow got a nail in the sidewall. After these two hiccups, our long PNW road trip began.

 

We camped 12 of 16 nights (4 motel nights because we had to work) and we already were completely obsessed with Walter and I was amazed at Toyota's genius feat with the 4Runner. However, the dealership made one major error which we discovered while we were in the North Cascades... major brake screeching began and Les Schwab told me I needed a complete brake service. One quick phone call to the dealership with thorough documentation and there suddenly came profuse apologies and essentially a blank check promised upon our return to Kansas, yay for free brakes. In the end, this trip was an incredibly fun inaugural journey. It was only the beginning of 4 major road trips in the back half of 2021 -- NYC, upstate NY the Grand Tetons, overnight straight shot 27-hours to California, hitting Utah on the way back home, & Tampa FL with Nashville stop along the way. Totaling somewhere about +25k miles in 6 months of ownership, and we paid for fluids + serp belt. Needless to say coming from a bunch of lemons before this I was overjoyed. All of this was completely stock because we just jumped straight in to driving.

 

John,
Would like to welcome you and Walter to the forum!

 

So, on to 2022, lots of flights that year! Less road trips. However, one up to Lake Okoboji which was a nicer lake than we expected for the midwest! But tornado warnings... alas, the midwest haha. Then another trip to the north coast of Minnesota past Duluth to Gooseberry State Park. It was a beautiful trip, but late May proved to be very cold camping yet that far north. And then the capstone trip of the year was camping in Glacier National Park. Only hiccup on this trip was somewhere in Wyoming at a KOA we got a check engine light after battery died and it read Crankshaft Position Sensor.. hmmm I didn't know what to do so we drove on. Intermittently we couldn't start the car and had to get a jump. In the end, after the trip was over I checked and changed the battery, sure enough it was swollen on one side and bad. Two lessons learned here: carry a battery pack jump starter and whenever you get codes first check the battery.

 

Actually, I nearly forgot: we had one more trip north to Minnesota in September '22. Then over to Illinois. And finally ended the year in November in Highlands, NC where we got to enjoy a nice cabin Airbnb in the fall colors.

 

Immediately after the final trip of 2022 the "minor mods" began! Starting with removing the 3rd row because we had no use for it at all and I dreamed of maximizing that area for storage (writing in may 2024 I've yet to finalize the best way that works for our situation haha). I started with this simple box with slide drawer on top of a carpeted plywood platform bolted down in the back.

 

Next up was swapping out the stock 20" rims for the ORP stock 17s in December of 2022. These are the final photos of Walter when he was still completely bone stock and this was truly the first aesthetic mod that I made. This whole journey of the 4Runner for me was (& has been ongoing) my first serious foray into self-servicing my own vehicle. Swapping the wheels felt like a fun step, but the suspension swap was coming next in January. Growing up my family often couldn't afford to pay a mechanic so my dad taught me minor work/repair/maintenance but it never caught me seriously. Now as an adult, I just kept paying mechanics as I lived in apartments and didn't even consider just doing any work myself. But when the repair bill for XREAS said $4k or bilstein swap for $2k that was the moment I decided I was going to take what I learned as a young man and start working with wrenches a bit more... now I love it!

 

Next task was January of 2023, deleting the XREAS. This was my first ever car project where I had to have wheels off the ground, using a floor jack and jack stands. At ~150k miles the XREAS were thoroughly leaking. I documented that journey here: https://www.4runners.com/threads/14-limited-xreas-swap-with-oem-take-offs.29784/

 

Throughout the spring of 2023 I did some more aesthetic work: detailing, paint correct, plastidip lots of chrome, add body mount "rock rails" for looks & cut the limited side skirts, as I prepped for a long camping road trip coming in the summer. And I also finished out my build of the rear cargo box (3rd row delete). Spoiler: that box is gone now and I've yet to figure the next longer-term solution (currently may '24). Bottom picture is stock 2021 vs May 2023.

My work started with a deep detail interior & paint correct + protect exterior. Black paint is tough, especially apparently soft toyota paint, and all paint gets bad swirls through years of auto-car-washes, oops, I didn't know. This was my first time learning about detailing and I had a lot of fun with the process, though technically I didn't finish still (again, may '24) because I couldn't decide if I would delete the c-pillar badges and here we are one year later. Likely will do the whole truck again, careful not to be aggressive on the paint, but it could use a touch-up from my inexperienced first try.

Adding the rock rails and cutting the side skirts was easy, albeit nerve racking cuz there's no going back and sure enough I screwed up a little bit by cutting the front and rear to the same specs even though I had measured the angle differently and marked it out right, just got hasty. Oh well.

Plastidipped the front bumper chin(s), roof rack, rear liftgate piece, and then just added black plastic handle covers (still haven't figured a better look for that without getting spendy or too much time).

 

Then we went on our long camping road trip to/through oregon, which has been a consistent favorite home away from home for many years. But, encountered the first "real trouble" with the 4runner, random periodic overheating. I'll link that thread click here. End of that technically hasn't been determined yet (may '24). So aside from that issue, and my wife having a head cold, we had a great time as always. More memories and miles behind us. Plastidip held up excellent with almost no chipping at all. Cargo box in the back was built slightly too tall. These are 3rd row seat problems. I had in mind that I would level the sleeping area, removing the sloping effect it had before with the 3rd row. However, I found out that when you level it, you can no longer sit criss-cross in the back because the extra 2 inches put your head in the ceiling. So that means my next solution will not be "level" for the bed in exchange for a place to sit, that's a very niche need for us haha. All that said, the fact that all my mechanical work had held up made me feel confident in pursuing more maintenance & projects to come.

random pictures: almost crossing 180k miles & oven mitt from dollar store to open rad cap while warm attempting to diagnose overheat.

 

After this trip, I did the very minor headlight upgrade of simply cutting the plastic bit on an H9 bulb which allows installation of brighter halogen bulb, because frankly I'm not a fan of the LED/HID idea, but with our 50k+ of miles driven so far I did feel the need for a bit more output. Last person must have touched the bulb but this was hilarious, I've never seen a bulged bulb like that. Around this same time I did my first oil change of my own on the 4runner and wasn't too happy with what I found. This ended with an oil analysis, great news, "downgrading" to the plastic filter housing which I'm happy about, and "upgrading" to a fumoto valve. Missing oil filter baffle tube--> documented here. fumoto valve info here.

 

Now possibly the two most important "mods" ever done to any toyota truck... not mods at all actually haha. November of '23 marked when WE officially owned Walter, and thus as a reward I went to town with PB Blaster Surface Shield documented here. Since then I've continued to do other various jobs and anytime I work on the 4runner I have a can of (hot) Surface Shield waiting nearby to keep on covering more missed spots. I want this truck to live forever.

 

January 2024, just when I felt like I wasn't sure which idea I would pursue next, someone decided for me.

Somebody cracked my bumper in a parking lot, without a note, & it slightly pushed my fender it seemed as well. Well, honestly this was a blessing because it was finally the courage I needed to cut my bumper as I had seen others with more courage do! However, that same week I also found a fellow member near KCMO selling a '14 black limited bumper! Are you kidding me? Thank you Lord, what a gift. So I bought it for cheap AND got to cut my bumper with peace of mind. And wait there's more: as I pursued this project I found out that Toyota put foam insulation on the radiator support bracket and in all my Surface Shield + other work I had never thought to look at the radiator support for rust... well I'm glad that bad parking lot parker hit me! That rust was terrible!! So I pulled the foam, wire wheeled, painted and Surface Shielded it. Also painted the bottom of the aluminum crash bar while I was in there so it wouldn't look funny at any angle with the bumper being cut higher.

Things got very interesting when I pulled my bumper off to inspect the damage and plan out my cut... I found out the previous owner had probably been in some sorta front end collision because there were multiple bumper pieces & fog lights that are CAPA certified aftermarket with yellow stickers and everything. Hmmm carfax didn't report that! Note for buying next, if it says no accidents, don't trust and take a look inside easy-to-see body panels for yellow stickers. Anyway, the bumper cut came out great in my view, and my patch job on the crack is alright, but I still need to spray my 2k clear coat over the area I had to lightly respray because it looks dull matte right now. Here is the bumper cut before I tried repairing the crack and then afterward... honestly maybe I should've left the crack? *shrug* step back 5 ft and it looks new for a 2014.

Also throwing in a fun picture of me next to a stock limited and I like where I'm headed.

last piece I've yet to repair though... they cracked my bumper right at the parking sensor which I never use. but it feels wrong to leave it like that, so I guess it's time for me to learn basic soldering. you can admire my jb weld job from the back here too haha.

 

In February I acquired a rear bumper in white for $100, but it's stripped to bare plastic in the crawl space now waiting for me to decide if I want to attempt my own paint job or pay for it. We'll see yet.

Then in April I decided I didn't like hearing squeaking from the back and I don't know if it was a couple self tappers that I used for my 3rd row mod or if it was just that the seats operating as sound deadening before were now gone and I had only put in cheap insulation. So I pulled the cargo platform, deconstructed the box entirely, and then installed sound deadening and better insulation too before putting the cargo platform back together properly using rivnuts where once there were self-tappers.

Also this was when I decided to do the easy rear diff breather mod. Will I likely ever ford a river? We'll see. But I love visiting oregon a lot and I've driven through some deep water just standing on the roads, so I figure this is some very cheap and easy peace-of-mind insurance. I just ran my line up into the tire-jack area. and I added some extra sound deadening while I was in there too.

Final little project was lighting. Brightened up my cargo area/interior. I don’t like the blue white LED look so I finally got some warm whites and the cargo area + center dome are significantly better now. However the non-overhead cargo area light still bothered me and I’ve been thinking lots about wiring a light in there as others have done… but at Walmart today there was a very small warm white led light bar for $6 that caught my eye for simple battery power push button operation Velcro’d to the headliner. Easy peasy, looks well enough, very practical, I’m happy.




^ update 2/11/25 - this velcro cargo lighting solution has only been okay, so I'll eventually do something a bit more permanent.
I've also yet to mess with the parking sensor because I don't use them anyway, but it's a good excuse to mess around with soldering since I've never learned.

 

During the same time as the previous update 5/11/24ish -- I used a few bolts and nylon spacers and I was able to replace the "grocery getter" net strap holder things with some small d-rings. They shake and bounce while driving on rough roads or over bumps, which I've yet to fix because it's just not annoying enough. I think some bungee cords would solve it and be useful for when I put them to use. Honestly, haven't really used them yet because we haven't been camping in a bit, but I know I'm going to be happy to have them when the time comes. Also as previously mentioned (now pictures) are the warm LEDs that I added.

 

added the cartrimhome black skid plate with oil filter access in may '24 as well and I'm glad to have it for a host of reasons. Also managed 22+ mpg on a texas road trip for nearly a full tank.

 

front and rear diffs, along with the transfer case serviced in December. I was around the 50k marker of very light service. My prior mechanic first did this when I bought the runner and I didn't know anything about doing my own maintenance. I definitely overpaid and out of curiosity I called them to ask what they use and the tech said they just get a generic 75w-90 in 50-gal drums. So I went with valvoline flex bags because they're easy and apparently 75w-90 has been fine for me for awhile so I'll keep running it. also, some may advise against it, but after watching others strip toyota diff drain bolts I just defaulted to using my hercules ultra torque and all went perfectly smooth haha! I contemplated the "lexus bolt upgrade" but decided no for now, maybe later.

 

December was a maintenance month and the biggest item is the one I'm most hopeful/excited about. My radiator face was FILTHY. and I made a youtube video for others about cleaning and/or replacement. All the details about my reasoning for this with my 'overheating' history and much of my diagnosis process are documented in the video. https://youtu.be/asRkfHKk6TU?si=pRvny1qqZM-Bu_wW

 

New year brought about a decent snow storm and some good fun.




Still rocking highway tires because I'm too poor for all-terrain upgrades, while my tires still have great tread, and I've yet to get stuck anywhere with my pavement prince.

 

After the overheating fiasco in the summer of 2023, I wanted peace of mind, so I sent an oil sample to Blackstone in December and got my report back in January of 2024. I barely drove in 2024, but this last December, I decided to take another sample since I'm now over 200k and to give myself a nice two-point reference in case of any future issues/concerns.

 

Tonight I replaced the spark plugs. Mileage right under 204k. It might be the first time in its life? I'm 2nd owner, and I don't know if the previous owner ever did it because I believe these are OEM Denso. Glad to get another 100k out of these new plugs! I went with the fanciest on RockAuto because why not spend a couple extra dollars on a 100k part that still comes out under $80 total haha.

 

Very very cool thread and of course lovely build. Enjoyed reading all of your posts! Well done sir.