Ripcord's Spruce Mica Build

|July 15, 2018|

Snorkel time:
What started my path towards a snorkel was that after my fender trimming and removing the wheel well liners, the intake was exposed. Water, dust, and dirt could easily be thrown right into the intake by the tires!

Other options were an intake that did not go through the inner fender, such as some Cold Air Intakes. That however would be just as expensive as a snorkel, also intakes that do not leave the engine bay are really just hot air intakes…

The thing that always held me back from getting a snorkel was that the Tacoma version of the Safari Snorkel was HUGE! I hated it. But one day I saw that you can retrofit the Hilux version to a Tacoma. The Hilux snorkel is MUCH more low profile and I think it looks great! The issue with the Hilux version is that is wasn’t made for Tacomas, so the fit isn’t perfect and requires a few extra parts to complete.

Parts / Retail Cost:
$335 - Hilux Snorkel (ARB SS135MODR)
3" Spectre 8741 flexible intake pipe
3" 45 deg Silicone elbow
3”x 4” reducer 45deg silicone elbow
3” exhaust tubing
3" hose clamps (5)
4" hose clamp (1)
Touch up paint

Tools:
92mm hole saw
Drill
Hack saw
Dremel with small rotary sander attachment OR a round hand file
Screwdriver
10mm socket
12mm socket

Resource Threads:
Cruiser Outfitters are the ones who sell this snorkel and wrote the following How to: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/snorkel-installation-2nd-gen-ss135mod-1st-gen-ss170hf.141141/

Procedure:
For the procedure, you can follow most of the thread I linked above, but as you will see I encountered a fitment issue and had to improvise.

Here are the included parts in the kit. Along with a few 3” couplers I had lying around for test fitting.




Here is the factory intake setup.




Took out the factory intake duct.




Template on the fender.




All cut, filed and touch-up painted.




I mentioned above that I encountered a fitment issue, here it is. The snorkel outlet was too far forward and high for the supplied elbow piece to work. The how-to thread said you may have to trim the pieces slightly, but I didn’t see how that was going to help enough.






My original intention was to reuse this intake piece, I cut off the little scoop that is on the end of the pipe and fitted one of the couplers… THEN I noticed that this factory piece has drain holes in it, no point in having a snorkel when you have holes in your intake.... OK new plan needed.




So the new plan was to use some flexible intake ducting in combination with some silicone intake couplers, it was the only way I saw that it could be done without cutting through the inner fender. Here are the other parts I ordered, not pictured is the 3”x 4” reducer 45 deg elbow.




Put some 1/32” edge trim on the factory intake hole on the inner fender.




Here is how the flexible ducting attaches to the snorkel outlet in the fender.






The silicone elbows.




Cut a few 2-3” straight pieces of the 3” exhaust pipe.






Here is the 3”x 4” reducer 45 deg elbow piece. I did trim it down a bit after this photo...




All assembled.




A-pillar drilled and paint matched according to the instructions.




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Finished product:




Notice 2 things...
1: The fitment of the snorkel does not line up with the fender profile, that is because this snorkel was made to line up with the Hilux fender.
2. The snorkel itself is very low profile! This is what I was hoping for as opposed to the massive Tacoma version of the snorkel.



The height of the snorkel inlet stays low, still lower than the shark fin on the roof!




====================================


As you can see, I also finished adding the fender trim after cutting the fenders and flares.


Get some edge trim, you will need just under 20ft of each size:
1/32" for the fender itself (McMasterCarr 8507K14)
1/16" for the flares (McMasterCarr 8507K52)

 

At the end of July, I took a week-long trip through some of the northern states and into Canada. The main wheeling target was the infamous Morrison Jeep Trail. Other than that, it was just a national parks tour.

Day 1 was just traveling, we drove to the Grand Teton national park and camped just outside the park on Shadow Mountain, which overlooks the park and the mountains!

Trip was off to a good start on the morning of day 2!




Here is the group, 3 3rd gen 4Runners, and long travel 1st gen 4runner, and me. I have known these guys for years, we do a trip like this every year.
Instagram accounts if you are curious, from left to right:
A.Flemster
Derpiful
Wp_oliver
Jesuschrist_supercar
Ripcord_






At Jackson lake, the main lake in the park, we went swimming while it was raining. Very fun!






To end Day 2, we camped off of a reservoir between Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks.




Camp entertainment consists of drinking and playing with RC crawlers and laying in hammocks.







And some fishing




Day 3, we drove up through yellowstone. Saw all the regular tourist stuff, my favorite spot was the grand prismatic spring.






The horde of people at old faithful, lol




Neat old hotel




Saw a small grizzly as we were leaving the park heading east towards the Morrison Jeep Trail trailhead.









We ended up deciding to go all the way to the trailhead for the morrison jeep trail, which had us arriving at about 1am haha.

 

Day 4 we woke up at the start of the Morrison Jeep Trail, today was going to be the only good wheeling day of the trip.




We produce a series of videos for each summer’s big trip, so watch for those in the coming weeks.




EDIT: Here is the video

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YNy20g0LhG8



Heading up the switchbacks











This trail is notorious for the same reason that Black Bear Pass is, it is very exposed and one mistake can lead to serious injury and likely death. People die every year on this trail from falling off.

Morrison in particular starts at an elevation of 4,600 ft at the base of the valley and within 1.5 miles of road and 27 switchbacks you have nearly reached 8,000 ft. The trail goes on to reach a max elevation of over 10,000 ft later on.




The switchbacks are tight and steep.






It was a hot day and some people’s trucks struggled with the heat combined with the incline not picking up enough oil from the sump.




Once you are past the switchbacks and on the beartooth plateau, the trail turns into an alpine forest. Which is a strong contrast to the high desert of the switchbacks just a few miles behind you.










We made camp somewhere on the top of the plateau, surrounded by green!




Day 5 and 6 were travel and restock days, we made our way back through the top end of yellowstone and up towards Glacier national park.

Buffalo are massive!




At Flathead lake near Glacier national park.






The end of day 6, we made camp near the west entrance to Glacier, on a river with a great shore. Every rock you see on that shore is the best skipping rock you had ever seen. We skipped rocks for hours.




Day 7, we drove the Going-to-the-Sun road through Glacier national park.








By the end of day 7, we had crossed into Canada!

 

We had to find a campground that night due to poor planning, but in the morning of day 8 we drove up to Banff!






Tons of wildlife in this park






Super blue, super clear lakes.




Lots of caves to see in Banff as well, its a big geothermal area much like yellowstone. Lots of hot springs you can soak in too!




Sulfur water stream.




That was the end of the trip, from there we just all drove back.

And the lone picture I took of the entire 19 hour drive back to Denver, fog had enveloped the entire state of Wyoming.

 

Awesome!

 

Nice truck, love that color. Beautiful pics, thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks guys!

 

One week after my week long trip, I needed to get back out again. Had to get my yearly trip to the San Juan mountains of Colorado.

Over 48 hours I ran the following trails:

Hancock Pass
Engineer Pass
California Pass
Hurricane Pass
Corkscrew Pass
Black Bear Pass




















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Video:

 

Got a few more trips done in the last month. Spent one weekend near steamboat springs and another trip around the Crested Butte / Aspen area.





























My friend Drew’s 1st gen 4runner

 

Over my very busy summer of wheeling and camping (see the list on page 1) , my Taco had acquired a large number of pinstripes. I met up with my friend who owns Day Off Detailing of Denver for some extensive paint correction and wax.


Here are some before photos:












Some in-progress pics

 

Great truck fella! Spruce Mica is the absolute bee's knee's of Tacoma colors. That sparkly green is just so damn attractive. Really like how clean all your mods are, fantastic work!!!

Have a 2012 Spruce myself, but I don't wheel it. It's to pretty. I bought a 07 Desert Sand Single cab to smash around off road. My Spruce has pretty much become a 30K lawn ornament at this point, lol.

 

haha thanks dude, I'm definitely going to be more careful out wheeling for a while.

 

Freakin awesome build man! I like how you take your time to post everything in detail with great pictures! What camera do you use?

 

Thanks! The last few months I have been shooting with a Canon 6D mk1. Primary lens is a 24-105 f/4 but I have a few f/1.8 primes I occasionally play around with.

 

Changed up how the rear dust lights are mounted.

Was able to get them much tighter up against the bottom of the tent, subtle but it looks way better. I ordered some spare tent slides (ARB Part # 815113) which are the same parts you use when mounting the tent. FYI they were near impossible to find in the States, took me about 2 months to get them. Desert Rat should have them now at this point thanks to me bugging them about them constantly.

Bolts are 5/16"







Here is how the lights were mounted previously... (PG. 4/ Post 65)






How the slide fits into the tent rail.








In other news, I picked up a set of BHLM headlights to start working on a projector retrofit. So that should be nice.

 

sweet photos!

 

Great build! I'm new to this forum, but have been on automotive forums of some kind since the they existed. I came here after following your 4Runner builds on the 4Runner forum(s). I agree very much with your mod philosophy, and it killed me to see what happened to the second one - crying shame.

If you don't mind, I might like to pick your brain about my upcoming 3rd-Gen build at some point. I picked up my 2002 Limited in late August. That will be the platform. Do you still frequent that site?

My 16 year-old son just started driving the white 2001 SR5 and has plans for his own build. The Thundercloud 2001 is going to be sold to a friend in Denver, which I hate because it is currently an absolutely rust-free Texas truck.

On another note, our group was in Ouray the week before you were and ran Black Bear, among others, on August 9. It was the second year of the vintage Land Cruiser event my brother and I help organize.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/solid-axle-summit-2018.1035347/

Black Bear run 8/9/18:
https://youtu.be/Azstc8YoQ-E

I am driving my brother's blue FJ60:
V8 conversion - manual - Chevy 350

My brother is the trail leader in the video:
Tan FJ40 - 383 Stroker motor conversion done in his garage 20 years ago

 

jesus this color green looks so fucking good on these trucks, I'll never understand why Toyota only offered it for such a short time.

 

I was just up in Big Sir this past week camping with my wife for our honeymoon.

Which trail is that with the "most difficult" sign? I couldn't find any trails for 4x4s out that way except for the Old Coast Road which was pretty much just a fire road.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

I occasionally check in on T4R, but I would be glad to let you bounce some ideas off of me. Send me a message about it.

I wasn't aware of the Solid axle summit, that is a neat event! So many cool trucks!

I really miss that area, I think it was my favorite spot in California.

The trail you are asking about what in the Sierras actually, Wheeler crest. Near Mammoth Lakes.