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

Scored an RCI fuel tank skid P/N T4R-10-FUEL-ALBK in powdercoated aluminum on FB Marketplace. Stock sheelmetal skid was severely rusted, so I figured I'd replace it while the bolts still cooperated...



When all is done I'll have skid plates from four different mfrs on the same vehicle, thanks to buying used or during scratch & dent sales.

 

drove the 4R w/ the kiddos to the canada famous store, canadian tire. have you ever heard of a canadian tire credit card? didn’t think so.

bought this stuff:

 

maxed out my mirror adjuster so I can admire the poke

 

A few air tag / smart tags is a good alternative. You can tape them to the inside of plastics, get those extra key magnet cases and magnet them under the vehicle.

 

Agreed, I didn't even know lo-jack was still a thing haha.

 

washed bird crap and dirt

 

I recommend this to everyone. Here's the key to doing it.

1) Remove/Disconnect the speaker in the Air Tag. That's how you find something via AirTag, it beeps. Thieves know this and they'll use their iPhone or Apple device to make any Air Tags in the general vicinity beep. There are videos on YouTube on how to do it. It's super easy.
2) Hide TWO in your 4Runner. One in an easy or obvious place and a second one in an odd and hard to find spot, like, behind the tail light inside the body panel.

AirTags are also great for pets that are escape artists or parents/grand parents that get lost easily. Slip one in Grandma's purse so you can easily track her! No more "Silver Alerts".

 

I do the air tag thing also. Speakers are easy to remove.

 

Sorry you had a bad experience, sometimes you just never know what you're going to get! I did all my negotations via text messaging and then when I arrived I told them please don't waste my time when I'm signing paperwork to try and pressure me into extended warranties, etc. It helped that they were pretty busy on a late Saturday evening and wanted to get out of there as well.

 

Filled it up with gas. I also did the Rav4 mirror swap. The heater connector wires are a little shorter than they look on the videos. Had to use some forceps to get in there to grab em'. One beer job.

 

Tackled brake fluid, coolant (2nd recent D/F), power steering fluid (3rd recent D/F) and they’re looking good and I think I’m set for a while! (except transmission)

Even though it’s around 36k miles the original PSF looked brown so now after three D/F’s it’s a darker-than-new red ATF in there and I’ll see how it is in a while.

 

I dropped an 89121 - 30020 ambient light sensor into the dash. I need to test it again tomorrow, but I don't think it's the right thing -- should have bought -0E060 instead. Dangit.

 

That's really smart. Glad this came up. Going to go do this now.

 

Put in a DC Power hi output alternator

 

That group owns a lot of the Honda dealerships in my area. I bought from them and had a good experience.

 

^It alternates higher

 

Nice! I'm gradually blacking out my 2019 SR5. Just replaced the door handles. I like the contrast. Might be a bit too much for the white tho. Anyway, enjoy!!!

 

Put on RCI aluminum skid plates (Engine, Transmission, Transfer Case).

 

Love the wood in background!
I wish I could burn it here, too much work. So I compromised with a pellet burner. Lot of fun, but not nearly as much as wood burning stove.

 

Let me know if you have any luck removing the wrong sensor. I installed the wrong one (it did nothing), tried to remove it, broke it in the process, and ultimately put the factory cover piece back on. I suppose I could take the dash apart to get to it to complete the removal and try again, but I'm not sufficiently motivated to do that right now.

 

I have a yellow top battery which seemed like it wasn't charging well. It wants 13.65-15 volts to charge. I think the factory system does the very low end of this. I measured the DC Power at 14.11 volts. By not charging correctly I mean the voltage on the battery was pretty low and my wife said she got some warning temporarily on the dash about low voltage or something.

The factory alternator is 130 amps. Probably less at idle? The DC Power is about 200 amps at idle and up from there. I've got 1600 watts worth of D series amps, a 500 watt inverter, a light bar that takes 12 amps in the bumper and I'm thinking about adding a 16 amp light bar up top. Definitely needed an upgrade if those were to be all on at once.

Install was pretty long. I followed this video except I had to remove and loosen a lot more stuff to get access. I was shocked at how far back and difficult to get to the stock alternator is. And then the DC Power definitely needed spacer which I did find another post on the T4R forums that someone had to do. Probably 3 hours to remove taking my time, watching this video a lot asking myself how was I going to reach this thing, looking at a lot of other forums posts especially since it needed this spacer and didn't feel like it actually fit the 4runner at first, then drove to a hardware store which didn't have what I needed. They provide a replacement bolt which isn't long enough so got an appropriately sized bolt the next day and had it all back together within an hour.

The aftermarket one doesn't use as many brackets for cable management so I zip tied wires down pretty well. The stock connector needed to be drilled out with a step up drill bit as it didn't fit the larger bolt on the DC Power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upXrw2bz8Do

 

How did you do your brake fluid?

 

Will do!

 

Ya gotta black out those wheels. I did mine in Rustoleum gloss black

 

I'm impressed. I knew Off was good for repelling insects, but didn't know you could use it to jack up the 4Runner!

 

Installed the TG DMM. Install easy AF. Now to find a magsafe mount worth a 1" attachment.

 

Awesome! welcome aboard!

 

I bought a Mityvac hand vacuum pump and went at it myself with each brake bleeder. Not sure I got a complete flush since the fluid already looked pretty good coming out but eh, I could bump up the interval if it really weighs on me in the future. Started with RR wheel, RL, FR, FL

I remember reading something about being able to use the built-in pump to get fluid out of the rear brakes but I didn't remember until after so I'll look into that next time.