Adventures in 4Runner'ing

[AxleIke]

And one last, other, other thought

You are talking about 33's.

You should keep in mind that your truck is going to be much taller than DanS's truck. He has a factory solid axle, which has Jsteer, most likely. You will have a high steer kit (you want this).

This pulls all of your steering linkage up out of the way of rocks and harm, BUT, if you run leaf springs, you have to do some various things to keep the draglink and pitman arm out of the springs: flat arm, vertical box mount, and sometimes a frame notch to clear. Most people run a 3-5" lift spring to compensate. Also, even with stock springs, most kits come with what is called a "drop hangar". This means you weld the hanger to the existing frame, and it hangs below the frame, and is lower than a stock solid axle frame hanger

This gives lift, usually a couple of inches, even with stock springs, sometimes more as you need enough shackle length to keep your castor in check to avoid death wobble without a cut and turn of your steering knuckles.

To combat this, guys "french" the front hangars in, which means you cut into, or cut off, the front of the frame and weld in the hangers so they are up higher.

Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying, the truck is going to look out of proportion with 33's. Check out Justin's truck Red Chili. It has 35's and those are just starting to look in proportion, but 37's are better.

Keep that in mind when you go to spend money on gears. It would stink to go to 4.88's and then realize almost immediately that you want 35's or 37's and need a regear again.

These are 35's. To me, even those look kinda small. You are building a truck that has plenty of strength for 37s' (if you go with chromo axles). This truck shows a good representation of what you described for a conversion: SAS, 63" springs out back.

What dave was talking about was with IFS. With IFS, you have to trim to fit. With a SAS, you will have bumpstops to keep the tires out of the fenders, and they are much, much further away.

 

[mikeyhcrana]

Jeezers, how the heck do you guys type so much long posts, do you have a secretary typing for you? It's a good read though.

All this information and I don't see anybody asking for more info on the important details. I pride myself on having the best music available in 1985 in my truck. 80's metal sounds best in an 80's truck. I prefer Van Halen, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, & Sepultura. Please give details on the awesome 80's playlist in yours.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Mike, there are music threads!

The catch-all:
http://risingsun4x4club.org/xf/threads/20348/

Since you're into 80s music, surely you're still rocking vinyl, right?
http://risingsun4x4club.org/xf/threads/22471/

 

[DouglasVB]

I don't really care about it much, since someday soon enough I'll yank it out of there and swap in a 3L or something. But for now, I'm still amazed at how well it does.

Dibs on your mythical 22RE engines!

 

[DouglasVB]

If you are going to go to that expense, I HIGHLY recommend looking into your insurance's stated value policies. Keep ALL of your receipts and when you are done, you'll have to have it appraised, but you'll want more than they'll give you normally. You've got all the makings of a 30k truck that the insurance company will value at about 2k.

I've already talked with my current company. They depreciate anything aftermarket extremely fast. Basically after six months, there is no point in insuring above the stock barebones value of the truck with them. I am with Country Financial currently and have been since I started driving back in the dark ages of the mid 90s. I've stuck with them so long because out in Oregon they were the only ones who would still insure farms in our area. Moving forward, I know that I need to find a company that insures 4x4s that are modified, etc. For now, I know I'm taking a risk.

Any suggestions of good insurance companies are welcome

I did not see it on your list, but some theft deterrent systems should be on a truck that has this kind of coin in it. I'm not joking when I say these year trucks are some of the easiest to steal. The key to my old 87 started my buddies 86, and another guys 85. Something where the number of key variants were very small and the right amount of wear on a key meant it could start a number of different trucks.

Look into Kill switches, battery disconnects, fuel pump switches, etc...

Already done and more on the way.

3 batteries is pointless. The only thing I saw on there that needed 2 was a welder, and that is if you want to run the batteries in series to get enough voltage and amps to weld. If you get an onboard welding set up, you won't need that.

I have a fridge and a single battery. Its fine for 2 days w/out start up. More than that, and you'll want a second battery. But 3 is not really gaining you anything unless you plan to run something for a month without ever starting the truck.

Good point! I'll stop my battery madness at two. And the two would be for redundant starting purposes mainly. Long ago my parents had an old F150 that we used with a big camper. In addition to the camper batteries, the truck had dual batteries so that we'd never be stuck somewhere out in the desert. That came in handy more than once.

On the subject of 22re's. My 87 4runner on 33's with 4.88 gearing would do 55-60 no problem up the passes, but it was bored .030 over, with header, exhaust, and intake. AND, I ran it at 3500 - 4000 RPM. Those motors LOVE that range. Sounds like the thing is going to come apart, but mine had over 300,000 miles on it. My dad purchased the truck in 89 with 4000 miles on it. Gave it to me at 250,000 miles. He ran it, and I ran it, at those RPMs its entire life. The timing chain guides wore out at 260k, but that's pretty standard.

If you want to go up the hills, rev it up. 3rd gear is your friend.

If you want to go more, you can ride in my 87 pickup 22rte. That will do 70 mph in 5th gear up any hill around here all day, AND the turbo is barely working right now. Its a pretty easy swap over, the only hard part is you need to find the ECU. A small T3 or similar and either a factory or aftermarket turbo manifold is what you'd need. To play it safe, you can swap to the 22rte head, which has lower compression, but the 22re head is fine as long as you are conservative with boost.

At 4000 RPM I get a horrible belt squeal at the moment (I think related to the probably shot power steering pump pulley). Going up the steep hills on the way to Boulder from Golden, I can't get it to 4000 RPM in 3rd gear. Usually I end up at 3500 RPM. Probably my compression is a bit low or maybe it's the original engine with no over-boring.

Turbo... hmm... now you're giving me bad ideas

The one last thing I wanted to enquire about: How is your welding? I am not asking to be insulting, just trying to figure out where you're at. If you are a good, experienced welder, then the SAS is no big deal. However, if you are fairly novice, you may want to start practicing a bunch now, so that you can get good by this winter when you want to do your SAS.

Its not something you want to do wrong, as it is going to be traveling down the road with you and your loved ones, and other people around you, and a bad welding job can have potentially very serious consequences.

Again, not trying to imply anything or be insulting, just offering some advice, as a full SAS requires a lot of welding, AND a fair amount of overhead/out of position welding. Welding upside down or on your back is a lot different than at a bench.

Oh yeah I'm a horrible welder but one of my neighbors (and friend/coworker) is a really good welder (and does some welding professionally as part of his job). He's already eagerly signed on to any welding projects that need to be done on the 4runner. I have just about convinced him to buy one himself. We might end up doing two SAS projects simultaneously in our two garages this winter.

The last thing related to that is equipment: you need to have, or have access to, a good 220 V welder capable of good penetration at 1/4" thick steel, as many of the things you will be welding will be that thick. Just something else to possibly factor in cost wise, if you don't have the tools already.

Yup! All set there. We have access to a full welding shop down at work. I also plan to get some people from the forum to come out and inspect all of our welds. Better safe than sorry, as you so rightly point out.

Looking forward to the build up! Looks like its going to be sweet!

Thanks! I'm looking forward to it, too.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Your squeal is might be the belt tensioner/idler. Mine starts making noise once in a while.

Top, middle of the engine directly above the water pump there's a pulley with a bolt coming out towards the intake. Spray behind the front washer on the bearing in the middle with WD40 and see if the noise goes away. Try not to spray too much on the belt so it doesn't slip. If it quiets down it's very easy to rebuilt and NAPA has the bearing. Loosen nut 1 just a little, and turn bolt 2 anticlockwise to remove tension from the belt. Then remove the pulley completely, the bearing is retained IIRC with a snap ring.

My PS pump is also making noise, but it's not a squeal. It also goes away after about 30 seconds once the pump starts warming up.

 

[ToyodaTocco]

x2 on everything AxleIke said.

Also, which anti theft device did you go with? I'm looking into one for my truck due to the fact that I've spent more on this truck than I would ever get from the insurance company.

Make sure you get your engine taken care of first. I know what the PO said but I don't believe any of them or the parts they used. Head gasket's like to go out on 22re's after a certain mileage. I noticed mine leaking at about 130k miles. It's not a hard job, or at least I didn't think so, but being a mechanic I could be a little jaded. Also, it sucks working on an engine when the truck is sitting on 35's, you need a step stool for everything. Doesn't matter how cool or capable the truck is if your engine is dead.

My transfer case seal rear output was leaking also. Buy two seals, just in case, ask me how I know.

 

[AxleIke]

Jeezers, how the heck do you guys type so much long posts, do you have a secretary typing for you? It's a good read though.

All this information and I don't see anybody asking for more info on the important details. I pride myself on having the best music available in 1985 in my truck. 80's metal sounds best in an 80's truck. I prefer Van Halen, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, & Sepultura. Please give details on the awesome 80's playlist in yours.

This x1000. 80s metal is key!

 

[ToyodaTocco]

Jeezers, how the heck do you guys type so much long posts, do you have a secretary typing for you? It's a good read though.

All this information and I don't see anybody asking for more info on the important details. I pride myself on having the best music available in 1985 in my truck. 80's metal sounds best in an 80's truck. I prefer Van Halen, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, & Sepultura. Please give details on the awesome 80's playlist in yours.

I beg to differ! Early Black Sabbath (with Ozzy) sounds the best coming from my truck.

 

[DaveInDenver]

There are many ways to keep your truck where you left it, but I think this is one of the best because it's brain dead easy for the jackass to see. This along with your clever ignition or fuel cut makes 90% of the thefts unlikely. They might still take it on a flatbed but that's more when your truck become high profile and targeted. Most of the time Toyota trucks are stolen because they are easy (there's not many different key cuts across 1979 to 1995, so your keys probably work in a lot of other trucks) and valuable for spares.

 

[AxleIke]

I beg to differ! Early Black Sabbath (with Ozzy) sounds the best coming from my truck.

 

[DouglasVB]

Your squeal is might be the belt tensioner/idler. Mine starts making noise once in a while.

Thanks! Once I have time in the garage (can't be in the garage if the weather is threatening because my girlfriend's car takes precedence in the event of hail), I'll check out that belt tensioner/idler.

 

[DouglasVB]

With a 22re, and small tires, you are not going to be breaking much. The 23 splined rear will be sufficient.

Perfect! That's exactly what I needed to know. I'll probably bug you more in a couple months when I start assembling all the goodies for the build. I was looking through the Marlin Crawler website to try and figure out if it's cost-effective for me to throw gears into a second transfer case and rebuild my current transfer case with the 23 spline output shaft or not. It almost looks like it's lower cost to just send them two transfer boxes and get back the complete ultimate setup they have.

Another question: 27 vs 30 spline drive shaft? Worth going up spline count on this or sticking with factory? (at least that's how I currently understand it... my knowledge here might not be right)

 

[DouglasVB]

Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying, the truck is going to look out of proportion with 33's. Check out Justin's truck Red Chili. It has 35's and those are just starting to look in proportion, but 37's are better.

Keep that in mind when you go to spend money on gears. It would stink to go to 4.88's and then realize almost immediately that you want 35's or 37's and need a regear again.

Yes I would rather regear only once than come back for a second set of gears to bump up to 5.29:1 (I think that's the preferred next step up?). However, I'm not sure how HUGE I want to go with the tires. I still want to be able to make this a daily driver and not have a $3k/yr tire budget. Also I want the overlanding aspect to be there and not just a gnarly rock muncher.

I've been eyeing the All Pro Offroad SAS kit for a few weeks now and it looks like I'd gain at least five inches of lift up front from the kit with a possibility of 6" if I wanted it. I'm aware of the concept of too much lift so I guess that's why people cut into the frame to sink the shackles into it a bit to reduce lift height? Do people redo their frames very often to make them mimic the 1985 and earlier frame design? Long ago I did some work with frames on semi trucks and at least in that industry it seemed pretty common for people to slice and dice their fames in all sorts of inventive and possibly destructive ways.

Maybe there will be a few 35" or 37" shoed minitrucks on the Argentine Pass run this weekend so that I can check out what that looks like.

This all would have been easier if I could have found a 1985 4runner

 

[DouglasVB]

All this information and I don't see anybody asking for more info on the important details. I pride myself on having the best music available in 1985 in my truck. 80's metal sounds best in an 80's truck. I prefer Van Halen, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, & Sepultura. Please give details on the awesome 80's playlist in yours.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS!!!

Mostly it's just 80s pop music at the moment. I need to increase my collection of 80s hair metal though. I'm a big fan of Motley Crue after watching Hot Tub Time Machine. My 4runner is basically a time machine back to the best decade of the last several.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I'd run 27-spline, plenty strong and unless you're 'wheeling with others who have done the 30-spline change you're more likely to find a spare Birfield. The stock axles are about as good as anything until you really start wailing on the truck.

Six inches of lift is a lot. With that much you need to be thinking about a wider stance, it can get tippy on the stock track width.

 

[DouglasVB]

which anti theft device did you go with? I'm looking into one for my truck due to the fact that I've spent more on this truck than I would ever get from the insurance company.

There are some convenient places in the harness both in the engine bay and in the dash that you can interrupt to prevent the truck from starting. Mad Max Fury Road is a good source of inspiration for interesting switch patterns to immobilize the vehicle. I'd rather not publicly disclose my specific scheme for immobilization on a public forum. However I can show you in the wiring diagrams some convenient places to dig into.

Make sure you get your engine taken care of first. I know what the PO said but I don't believe any of them or the parts they used. Head gasket's like to go out on 22re's after a certain mileage. I noticed mine leaking at about 130k miles. It's not a hard job, or at least I didn't think so, but being a mechanic I could be a little jaded. Also, it sucks working on an engine when the truck is sitting on 35's, you need a step stool for everything. Doesn't matter how cool or capable the truck is if your engine is dead.

My transfer case seal rear output was leaking also. Buy two seals, just in case, ask me how I know.

My buddy with the 2WD truck in Oregon just lost his engine last week due to head gasket failure between cylinders 3 and 4. He's swapping engines at the moment. I'd rather not have to do that anytime soon. Is it worth doing a head gasket job now as insurance?

Are there any other major or minor service items that I should be doing ASAP that I haven't yet (or that I'm not going to do in the next couple days)?

 

[DaveInDenver]

What are your compression and leak-down numbers? You'll see deviation (should be about +/- 10% from highest to lowest cylinder) when the HG (or rings) starts to be an issue. You can also pressurize your cooling system and see if it's starting to leak. It should hold 15 psi overnight without falling. I have all those tools if you ever want to borrow them.

You should do a valve lash adjustment, my bet is it's never been done and it should be done about every other oil change.

 

[DouglasVB]

I'd run 27-spline, plenty strong and unless you're 'wheeling with others who have done the 30-spline change you're more likely to find a spare Birfield. The stock axles are about as good as anything until you really start wailing on the truck.

27 splines it is then!

Six inches of lift is a lot. With that much you need to be thinking about a wider stance, it can get tippy on the stock track width.

I agree. And that's before lift from the upsized tires. Next time I do a huge 4runner build, I'll be sure to sit on my thumbs long enough to find a 1985 that is mostly rust free. This time I waited a year before I found my 1988. Waiting is HARD.

See, this is all Dan's fault. If he hadn't spoiled me with testing out his stock 1985 with solid axles, I would probably have stayed happy and ignorant with my IFS.

More seriously though, I don't want to end up with a minimonster truck at least on this build. I'd rather have something scrappy than a brute. Hmm I'll have to look at my chassis and body a bit to see how hard it would be to do major frame modifications.

 

[DouglasVB]

What are your compression and leak-down numbers? You'll see deviation (should be about +/- 10% from highest to lowest cylinder) when the HG (or rings) starts to be an issue. You can also pressurize your cooling system and see if it's starting to leak. It should hold 15 psi overnight without falling. I have all those tools if you ever want to borrow them.

I'd love to borrow the tools to do those tests. Those are tools that I don't have in my kit and I don't know those numbers. The compression test is done via spark plug holes, right? And the cooling system is done via removing the pressurized coolant cap and putting a cap on that can be hooked to a one-way valve and a 15PSI source?