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

A day trip to the mountains with some out of town friends road tripping in their 4Runner























And a couple of his pics

 

T4R with the ice cream man at work


This little dude is out growing this bike, he’s going to need another.

 

Randomly exploring

 

We took a couple of friends out for dinner on a mountain top. There was a section of trail that someone camping actually came over to watch me drive, he had said I was the first person to try it and not turn around and go back. We definitely forgot the regulator for the stove so we winged it and used the ammo can fire pit as a grill. It came out great.

 

Beautiful pics, as always!

 

Part 1

 

Part 2

 

Awesome camping trip part 1

 

A hike with my oldest

 

From here I need to go compile some info and go through pictures, but I just got back from a 2800 mile trip across 8 states.

 

I know it is probably on here someplace, but who made your rear bumper? I like the way it goes all the way to the taillights.

 

Southern Style Offroad trailgator

 

Man this is the life right here! Awesome thread.
How do you like the hood storage? I’m looking at the treadkeeper myself. Couldn’t find the finnfab one you mentioned.

 

That looks like an epic trip!

 

Awesome truck and pictures. Thanks for sharing.

 

Holloween fun

 

Christmas light miniature golf

 

Fishing

 

Hiking with a little cave exploring

 

Exploring in the mountains a bit.

 

When I switched jobs to aerospace I stopped commuting to work via airplane. I starting have to drive the 4Runner. Eating up expensive tires during a 40-45 mile daily commute getting 13.7(ish) mpg and waiting for someone on their phone to hit and total out the 4Runner in traffic sucks. So I bought a car. I searched for a few months trying to find a good reliable beater that wasn’t astronomically priced. This is what I ended up buying.

2006 Pontiac Vibe GT

It’s a Toyota Matrix (which is a just Corolla hatchback) rebadged for Pontiac. The GT is spec’d with the 8000+ rpm 180 hp 1.8L high output 2ZZ-GE engine and the C60 6-speed manual transmission. The 2ZZ/C60 is the same engine/transmission pairing rear mounted in the Lotus Elise and MR2, and front mounted in the Celica GT-S, Corolla XRS, and Matrix XRS.







Bought it with 154,000 miles overall in really good condition for its age. Valve cover had very minor seepage, oil pan was wet, the front right shock was blown, the HVAC blend door actuator was clicking, and the main and cargo dome light assemblies didn’t work.

The plan for the car is to basically refresh and update everything and do some light modification and modernizing. I’ve bought everything and I’m slowly working through installing the parts.



Engine

• Oil pan and drain plug
• Oil pan gasket
• Valve cover gasket
• Intake manifold gasket
• Throttle body gasket
• PCV valve
• Air filter
• Oil filter
• Mobil 1 oil
• Engine flush

Transmission

• Mobile 1 trans fluid
• Grease shifter pivots
• Solid shifter bushings
• Solid sealed bearing shift cable bushing replacements
• Fluid DOT 4 clutch fluid flush

Front Suspension

• Tein Endura Pro Plus OEM fit adjustable struts
• Tein H Tech springs
• KYB Strut mount w/bearing
• KYB Spring isolator
• KYB strut boot bellow
• Monroe upper spring perch
• Monroe upper spring seat
• Sway bar end links
• Sway bar bushings
• Control arms
• Ball joints
• Inner tie rod ends with boots
• Outer tie rod ends
• Brake calipers and brackets
• Powerstop Evolution brake pads
• Powerstop Evolution Geomet coated blank rotors
• Brake hardware kit
• Rubber flex brake lines
• DOT 4 fluid flush

Rear suspension

• Tein Endura Pro Plus adjustable shocks
• Tein H Tech springs
• KYB strut mount
• KYB shock boot bellow
• Sensen upper spring perch
• Sensen upper spring isolator
• Progress rear sway bar
• Brake calipers and brackets
• Powerstop Evolution brake pads
• Powerstop Evolution Geomet coated blank brake rotors
• Brake hardware kit
• Rubber flex brake lines
• DOT 4 fluid
• Parking brake show and cable adjustment

Interior

• Fresh air blend door actuator
• Cabin air filter
• Rebuild the dome light assemblies
• LED interior bulbs
• Alpine iLX-W650 7” touch screen CarPlay head unit with all the install parts
• Dash cam

Exterior

• Black license plate frames
• Bosch Icon Wiper blades
• Debadge all the emblems
• Headlight restoration
• Sylvania Silverstar Ultra high/low beam bulbs
• Diode Dynamics Smart Tap replacement relay
• Phillips Vision LED plate light bulbs
• Diode Dynamics XPR LED reverse light bulbs

The only thing I still need to buy is a wheels/tires. The tires are in great shape but absolutely horrendous in the snow for all seasons. I’m going with some Michelin CrossClimate2 all weather tires and a set of lightweight flow formed wheels, haven’t decided on which yet.

I feel like from there it should be good to go for another 150k with just some basic routine maintenance and an inevitable clutch/flywheel/slave/throw out bearing when it’s time.

 

Less Than Jake!

 

So I bought the Viberator, and the 4Runner immediately got pissed.

145K miles on stock end links before switching to “upgraded” forged ones from Overland Custom Design. They didn’t even make it a year. The end link snapped and stuffed the sway bar into the CV joint.








I rebuilt the axle wish fresh boots and grease via an OEM kit from the dealer and finally removed the sway bar completely since it’s not a daily anymore.

 

nice grab, from one high-rpm screamer driver to another (mine's a 2010 Si)! you won't see engines like these again, enjoy it for sure.

just wanted to chime in to say i also have the Tein H-techs. excellent daily-driver spring with a reasonable drop and good overall rates for just about anything you want to do short of actual track work. i have mine paired with Koni STR.T struts (apparently they feel like a Koni Yellow on full soft) and its just about perfect, and i still have enough ground clearance to get a jack under the subframe for maintenance.

considering your mechanical skills, it might be worth your time to dig into the valve clearances to double check that the high lift cams are in decent shape. its not unusual for the clearance on the high lift follower to be way too tight from the factory and wipe the cam lobe. this thread shows the results.

love the thread btw. you tell an awesome story with your pictures and in-depth writeups, and its much appreciated.

 

Thanks

It's a gutless little car, especially at high altitude and never going below 5500 feet, but it is fun to drive. I have a valve cover gasket for it, I do plan to check the cam when I do it. I rarely get it into the high lift profile when I'm driving it though so I'm not overly concerned.

 

Skiing with my minion

 

With the career change a handful of months ago I've been going a little stir crazy without all the traveling. I found a last minute huge discount deal on a trip to Cancun so we pulled the trigger. Bought it on a Tuesday, left that Sunday.