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

Littleman straight up LOVES the trailer. Sometimes we'll hook it up for no real reason but because he will ask to "hook on trailer"

 

Waiting on the rain to break

 

Next was our road trip in the 4Runner back to the Midwest. We left early evening and drove through the night. It was pretty much 1000 miles on the dot each way. We went to my best friend's house, he has a place in Wisconsin on 100+ acres of land and his own little farm, plus the family lake house is like a 15 miles away. We screwed around at the farm, at the lake, took a trip to Devils Lake to hike. It was a good trip. From there we went do to Chicago to visit family before doing another overnight drive back to Chicago.

 

My son handing me tools while I work on changing the oil

 

The very very beautiful blue lake hike.

 

My Wisconsin buddy came to Colorado to visit...

 

Family hike on Thanksgiving before turkey

 

Some more from this past winter ('17/'18)






Those Baja Design lights are amazing in the snow

 

Late winter national park trip

 

Our March 2018 ski weekend with friends










great timing let me catch Kevin eating it



Kevin again.... I swear he's actually a very good skier

 

Ski weekend continued



Can you spot my wife?

 

He really wanted to get the trailer out and load it up so we did lol



We put the bump seat in the RZR with his 4 point harness

 

Next up was replacing the taillight assemblies. On the drivers side the plastic on the housing was starting to deform a little where the socket snaps into place so it would't hold a consistent connection. I’d lose the brake light operation on that side sporadically so I just swapped them out the to the newer style that uses a wiring harness to each bulb instead of the old design. OEM housings, harnesses, and body to light housing gaskets made for a quick easy direct swap. No TYC junk here.

 

14' long piece of concrete siding fits just fine, dash, front headrest, rear headrest, hatch window glass kept it stable and supported. Worked out pretty well.

 

The roll down rear window is great for when you need to coral the kiddo. This was leaving the zoo, changed his diaper, left him back, ran over to the garbage can real quick.

it as just dumb luck I parked next to another 5th gen, old style taillights vs new style taillights.

 

Putting the bump seat to use with grandpa. Side note, we usually wear helmets but with him in there its like 15mph tops

 

Memorial Day road trip and weekend Part 1


Thursday afternoon we headed out, we stopped in Leadville for dinner on our way to Salida for the night. Friday we went to Great Sand Dunes National Park, hiked up the dunes, drove part of the Medano Pass, and had a picnic in the truck for lunch. The Sand Dunes were kinda cool, but after a relatively dry winter there was no water at the bottom, usually it’s a little lake you can swim in for a couple months at the beginning of summer. When we got back to Salida we had dinner overlooking the river and the kayak park, then to a party in the park and some ice cream for desert. Saturday we drove from Salida to the Royal Gorge Bridge and then headed back home from there. I can’t say I’d recommend the Royal Gorge Bridge, but it’s in my son’s Goodnight Colorado book so thought we would take him to see it in person. Once was enough. Sunday was breakfast and to the Boulder Creek fest, while we were there my wife signed up to run the Bolder Boulder. So in the morning on Memorial Day we went to the Bolder Boulder (one of the largest 10K races anywhere, international competition, 45,000 people racing, party atmosphere, its pretty awesome). Then Tuesday we got in a nice hike.

Packing up the truck getting ready to head out.


Almost up the Continental Divide.

 

Memorial Day road trip and weekend Part 2

 

Memorial Day road trip and weekend Part 3

Dinner was right there on that balcony

 

Memorial Day road trip and weekend Part 4

 

Another mountain hike

 

Another hike out with the mountain lions. He likes to find the trail markers.

 

Suspension

Personally I like the XREAS suspension. The dampeners were linked at opposite corners, LF to RR ad RF to LR, when one dampener is compressed its linked wheel tries to offset, equalize, and level the vehicle. On road it was fantastic, it stayed sports car flat around corners on on/off ramps. Off road it was a bit rough and it fought articulation a bit but overall, I was a fan. I kept the factory stuff until I killed it. Too much time on unpaved washboard rutted up unpaved roads at speed did it in. The suspension got hot, really hot, the dampeners faded bad, it started to smoke and smell. From that point on the shocks leaked.

They were totally dry one day and they looked like this the next.


After lots and lots and lots of research I made up my mind on what to go with.
- King OEM 2.5” front remote reservoir extended travel coilovers
- King OEM 2.5” rear remote reservoir extended travel custom length shocks
- JBA caster corrected upper control arms with Cerakote coated high articulation ball joints
- Toytec 2” machined rear bump stop spacers
- Icon 2” lift standard load rear springs
So little man and I stopped by Filthy Motorsports in Boulder to do some shopping. They are widely regarded at the go to place for all things King, they are King’s highest volume dealer.


We started the process of getting an order placed. They start with the base “OEM kit” and then factor in vehicle weight, intended use, tire size, ride height, spring rates, control arms, future plans to add weight like steel bumpers and a winch, etc, etc, etc and then order them custom from King. You can have them valved for your personal vehicle and needs fr no additional cost over the off the shelf kits with generic valving. That sounded great to me because this was the first time I've ever bought high end suspension that did NOT have adjustable dampeners. I intentionally went this route for the 4Runner because I know from past experience I will never stop tinkering if its adjustable. I'm the type that I will sit there and test and tweak and test and tweak ad test and tweak, constantly trying to find the perfect setup for each individual scenario and that's not something I want to get caught up in.

It started off as an awesome experience, very detailed, very thorough, but it seemed to go downhill as time went on.
Here's how it all dragged out...

- 3/8/18 I placed an order through Filthy Motorsports with a “4-6 week lead time”.
- 4/13/18 (4.5 weeks in) I’m told “another 3-4 weeks”.
- 5/9/18 (9 weeks in) I’m told “another 2 weeks”.
- 5/24/18 (11 weeks in) I’m told “a little while longer”.
- 6/5/18 (13 weeks in) I’m told “They’ve finished your order and are preparing to ship it”.
- 6/12/18 (14 weeks in) The suspension shows up at Filthy Motorsports, I tell them I’m out of town but I fly back on Friday 6/22/18 so I’ll come the following Monday morning to pick up the parts.
- 6/13/18 Filthy says “Ok, that should be fine. Please send us another email a few days before with the approximate time that you think you’ll show up. Ben should be inspecting your shocks today and if we discover any issues we will let you know. If you don’t get any more emails from us that will mean everything looked good.”
- 6/22/18 (15+ weeks in) I didn’t hear anything back so I sent a message that I’d come Monday morning around 8:30. They respond back saying the rear shocks are wrong, they aren’t the custom length rears. They said the box and the shocks are tagged as standard off the shelf rears and they are contacting King about it. Later that day Filthy said they talked to King and did some measurements and that they are in fact the correct parts just mislabeled.
- 6/25/18 I finally get my parts and head home to start the install.


After spending a whole bunch of money and waiting 15+ weeks I was happy to have my parts but I can’t say I was happy with how it all went and the issues were just beginning. Both small washers for the slotted holes in front sway bar spacer/reservoir brackets were missing, the front hose clamps to mount the reservoirs were too short, and the rears didn’t come with any clamps at all to mount the reservoirs at all. I went to the hardware store and got what I needed and continued the install.


If you notice in the above pics there is no preload on the coil overs. Filthy was very specific that they were already set up for a 2.5” lift in front and not to adjust anything, just throw them in and it’s good to go and in a month or so after everything settles you can tweak it if need be. So that’s what I did and it only gaining a little over an inch measured from the center of the hub to the fender edge. I asked Filthy what the deal was, their response was that my vehicle must be spec’d with extra weight than normal and that my before measurements seemed lower than normal to begin with. Knowing full well that was 100% made up BS I called King directly. King said the coil overs will never come set up for a 2.5” lift, they said they come with the spring perches at their lowest height which should be about 1.5” higher than stock. They said if you want 2.5” to go with 5 turns on 1 side and 7 on the other as a good starting point while accounting for the typical Toyota lean. That not even close what Filthy said. Remote reservoir Kings need to be removed in order to adjust height, so the suspension came right back out. King also informed me they always advise customers to except about 3 months for custom orders compared to the 4-5 weeks Filthy quoted. All in all I was a little disappointed in dealing with Filthy Motorsports.

Anyway, suspension went on.




Little man was all about helping me out.




Test fitting the bump stop spacers since they aren’t labeled left or right (this was wrong, the bump stops were too far forward.).

 

Rock sliders

There are a ton of brands that make sliders but I went with with RCI for multiple reasons.
- They are a local small business
- I can pick up in person to save on shipping
- They do group buys to bring the cost down
- I’ve always really liked the visual profile of the kickout on their sliders, they are in my opinion the best looking sliders on the market
- They are one of, if not the, strongest set of sliders out there. They have a 2" square main tube (vs. the common 1.75" round tubes) that is angled on the ends to avoid hang ups, 1.75" DOM outer rails are standard, there are 4 legs on each side with 1/4" steel gussets each one of them, and its full length frame plate mounting that is completely bolt on. They did not skimp anywhere, badass product for sure!

After replacing the suspension and getting all for the XREAS lines and components off the frame I started on the sliders. The Limited rocker panels don’t play well with sliders because of their size. There are a few solutions out there - buying OEM trail rockers which are very pricey, going with Shrockworks trail rockers with are steel, pretty generic in the fitment, and expensive when you factor in paying shipping, or seemingly the most common option, removing the rocker panels and running without them. I didn’t want to spend a bunch on money on replacing the rocker panels so I opted to go with removing them.

To start I grabbed a wire brush and some sand paper. I cleaned up surface rust and scuffed the paint then recoated the frame where the sliders will sit and let it dry for 24 hours.



From there I removed a rocker and bolted up a slider and starting checking it out. It looked horrible! You lose the front mud flaps, it looks unfinished/broken at the bottom of the fender, and most concerning, there is a big ass gap where the bottom of the door seal is fully exposed. My concern is winter driving, mud flap is gone and your spraying up ice and snow directly onto the seal through the gap between the body and the door. There was no way I was going to run it like this.





So I sat there, had a drink, stared at it for a while bitching and moaning about the situation and tried to figure out why so many people run it like that. Eventually I worked up the courage and decided to go for broke. I put down tape, marked my lines, traced my sons sand box bucket to get a consistent even radius and started cutting.





I did consider trimming the front and rear ends up a bit so when using the sliders to their fullest and actually sliding on rock I wouldn't destroy the lower hanging sections of the rocker panels. I went back and forth on it but ultimately choose not to trim them any further for a couple reasons. The first is with the paint being silver the alignment of the rocker trims to the bumpers is a lot more noticeable than on darker colored vehicles. If I continued the cut straight across the whole length it would look like something is missing when the front and rear bumpers hang a little lower than the sides. Second is the mud flaps, I know ditching them and posting muddy pics is what gets Instagram likes and whatnot but I’m perfectly ok with not spraying the side of my vehicle with mud and rocks. I will not give up mud flaps, and as with all things, I always prefer OEM quality fit and finish when possible. Third was really considering my intended use of the sliders. The main purpose for them is to have a step, now that its lifted, that doesn’t reduce clearance. The secondary purpose is the kick out to push around trunk trunks and rocks to keep the side of the truck and tire away from damage. And finally, I can spend a couple minutes and pull the rockers and mudflaps if I know I’ll be doing something where I’ll need that extra clearance, but this was never intended to be a rock crawler that's going to constantly drop down onto obstacles.

This was the finished result.

 

Going to ride the Boulder Creak Path

 

My son wanted to see a whistle pig (Marmot) and a waterfall like in his Rocky Mountain National Park book, so we went and found a water fall and whistle pigs.















https://youtu.be/7npCiX6ScAE

 

I love this picture.





Here's the first marmot, my son got upset because he was to loud and scared the marmot away.



The next one he stayed quiet so we got like 6 feet from it and he could check it out.



Success, that's a happy kid.

 

Checking out some dispersed camping.


I don't have all the LEDs on in broad daylight on a trail, can I still put this on my Instagram or will it get flagged as inappropriate?