Burt, The Old Man With friends Daryl and Donna

The last few weekends have been moving and house prep.
Took the rent and rack off, put on the soft topper for moving into the new house. I'm very excited by the garage space with space that will be my fabrication shop. This also is probably the best this truck has looked in my opinion.
We have been doing tons of work to do one the garage and new house.
The House needs a good clean that Delaney's working on and I have been rewiring the garage, adding 2 220V plugs for welding. Changing locks, installing starlink, etc

The 4runner is still stock, we got the tires for it on Saturday after swapping some 285/75s onto a friends Bronco. However I wont be surprised if lifting it comes sooner than expected, the stock suspension is stupid soft and sags an inch with and empty utility trailer and nose dives hard on light braking. Delaney has mentioned it a few times and how much she dislikes the floppy handling. Also stock Dunlop At20s Suck in snow. Truly some of the worse tires I've experienced.

 

oh wow big change man! sad to see the ranger go but cool to see all the new fun builds you are doing!


also super jealous of that garage space!

 

Burt is back on the Daily driver spot for me. Granted I only drive 20-30 miles a day which isn't bad. But it has reminded me its a 27 year old truck with 294K miles. So I decided to throw a bunch of cash at it and replace pretty much all bushings and mounts. As well as do a bit of upgrading.
On Order is:
Bilstein 6112s with 600lb coils.
New Top Hats
Eimkeith Coilover Mount Reinforcement Kit
JBA Upper Control Arm
Spindle Gussets
New Lower Control Arms, with Eimkeith reinforcement
OEM lower Ball Joints
Perry Parts Bump Stops Front
Black Bolts
Energy Suspension Steering Rack Bushings
Energy Body Mounts
OME Leaf Spring Bushings
Perry Parts Bump Stops Rear
DynoMax Super Turbo Muffler
Motor Mounts
Transmission Mount
Gas Cap
Brake Pedal Pad
Bilstein 7100 10" Rear Shocks 255/70 Valving for a Shock Relocate.

This all means I have a ton of work ahead of me. But its time for a bit of a rebuild on the truck and we should be good for a lot more travel and adventures in the coming years.

 

Donna got the first of many upgrades to come.
Delaney hated the silver snowflake wheels that come on an SR5, and disliked them even more so after the first snow storm had her sliding through an intersection on the terrible Dunlop AT20. With some Methods we picked up earlier and some 2500 miles Generals I took off a Bronco that belongs to my friends wife, we were able to give the 4runner a bit of an upgrade.
Method 701 Bead Grips and 265/70R17 Grabber ATX C load.


She also completed her first ever mod by herself. The Diff Breather Relocation. I gave her light guidance but she did all the work routing it up above the fuel tank breather. So any water crossings will be safe now. The Toyota Predator Steps were also removed since they sucked and made getting in hard.
Finally we put it up on the lift and made sure the alignment cams weren't seized. A couple had some slight surface rust so I pulled them all out, cleaned off the bolts and sleeves, applied a very liberal amount of Anti Seize to them because my least favorite job is cutting those out. With Yearly Alignments and new Anti Seize every couple years its easy to prevent them from seizing if you catch them early.


Up Next will be a Blue Sea 6 Circuit fuse box in preparation to keep all aftermarket electrical items wired cleanly and off the battery terminal. Following that would be the ARB single out of Roger, which will go into its 6th truck in the last 10 years and still going strong even being used a hundred times a year.

 

Nice build man! I’ve had a 96’ single cab since 08 and finally decided I’m going to fix it up this year. This thread has been good inspiration.

 

Burt Update!
Still setting up the garage but I been collecting parts for Burt.
I have just about everything at this point other than time to complete the work. Also in thinking that I will have the entire front end apart, it's makes sense to do the tundra brake upgrade and new wheel bearings at the same time as the spindle gussets, more things to order and more money to spend.
Bilstein 6112s with 600lbs springs. I also have new KYB top-hats for these with new bushings

Bilstein 7100 10" 255/70 rear shocks for a shock relocation.

JBA Upper Control Arms, as replacements upper ball joints.

I have Moog LCA and OEM LBJ at the house, the Lower are getting the Eimkeith reinforcement kit.
Perry Parts Front and Rear Bump Stops.

In addition I have HWF spindle gussets, EimKeith coilover mount gussets, new body mounts, new steering rack mounts, new leaf spring bushings and shackles. Motor mounts, transmission mount, muffler, and probably more that I have forgotten about at this point.

 

Daryl Update!
The CampOut is back on, we spend Saturday night in it at the house. We had a few friends over and camped in the backyard since we have a good amount of space to set up a few rigs and hang out.

One of the main draws to this property was the outbuilds it already had.
One being a open carport that Daryl fits in with a few inches of clearance if I park right in the center.


However his real home is actually next to it in an enclosed 12x30 building with a roll door. The problem is this trucks 8' on the dot, and the 8' roll door is right a 7'10'' when open. So I need to raise the door 6" to fit the truck with its net round of mods.
Speaking of, yesterday I placed the order for the suspension. A Carli Pintop kit with their HD Leaf Pack. Its a 2.5" Kit so I will stock on 35s for a little while but may eventually end up on 37s but not for a while.
The main feature is the shocks, King 2.5s with Carli's special valving. They are a remote reservoir set up. It should be here on Friday and Might get put on this weekend before a 6 day trip out to utah next weekend for my birthday.

 

Donna Update!
The first mods are starting. Delaney's first request after new wheels and tires, was an air compressor for airing up tires. Since I had an ARB single sitting around that came out of Roger it was a nice cheap first mod. Its actually one that was in Burt a few years ago, and before that my Jeep, before that a couple of tacomas my boss had. Its a 10 year old ARB single, in a guess its likely aired up 4 tires nearly 500-600 times. Most 3-4 day trips involve airing up 3-4 times during it with how we travel. On our longer 2 week trips it could be 10 times. Its going to continue use in Donna.
I looked around at all the off the shelf compressor mounts and didn't like either the cost of them or the fact they "don't" work with 2020 plus models since they added a additional fuse box behind the main fuse box. Somehow not a single company has discovered the ability to unbolt it, move it 4" back and reattach it to a threaded hole next to the abs module. But I digress.
In about an hour I made a 1/8" Aluminium tray that mounts to the inner fender and a leg that drops down to a hole in the fender for stability. Its nothing fancy but its a nice rigid mount. For now the chuck is on the compressor, but it will get moved to the front bumper so the hood doesn't need to be popped. Like Burt and Daryl.

Wiring it is up next, I've just been doing a half hour here and there after work. We have a Blue Sea 6 circuit fuse box that will be installed on the factory fuse box lid. Then the motor and switch power will run to that and the switch will be put in the cab for when that chuck ends up in the bumper. Possibly also for air lockers in the future.

 

Drool worthy shocks for the Super Duty
IIRC 8" front and 13" Rear with welded lowers for a longer stroke.

 

Friday night we took off into the mountains for a quick overnight, our goal was to make it to a reservoir that we had been eyeing for a while. While the snow hasn't been crazy this year at 8800' I was hoping we might be in the clear but around 9pm we ran into a 4' deep drift just a 1/4 mile from the the reservoir. Being in Daryl, solo and late in the night it wasn't worth pushing our luck. We turned around and headed back to a site about 20 minutes away that I knew about and set up for the night. The furnace keeping us nice and warm.


In the Morning Daryl had zero issues with a 15° Cold Start. firing up quickly with just the glow plugs cycling once.



The Cooper Stronghold A/T have been awesome so far. A touch louder than most A/T but not bad nor any louder than the Turbo on this 6.0.

Its always fun to see how long of a icicle the furnace can create in cold weather, overnight temps were around 15, minus whatever 25 mph winds created.

 

Saturday when we got home from camping we headed straight into the shop since we decided to swap in the Carli Suspension before Utah this Friday.

The Front went by quickly, Carli soft ride front coils, King 2.5 Shocks, extended Brake lines, 2° Caster Shims, and an Adjustable track bar.


On the rear is was a little more involved. the 99-07 Trucks have a shorter leaf spring, just like the 95.5-97 Tacomas. So in swapping to a Carli HD leaf pack is also involves relocating the front leaf spring hangers. This is done by cutting a groove in the 6 rivets that hold each hanger on, then using an air hammer to chisel them off. Then Punching them out of the frame and moving the hangers forward 8'' reusing 2 factory holes and drilling 4 more.
You can see the original location of the mount behind this one, it moves one hanger width forward.

Resulting in 08+ length leaf springs and a much smoother ride.

I went with the HD Pack, which they claim for 800-1200 constant. My camper is 1400, and it looks like its holding it perfectly.

Rear 13" travel shock tucked up in there.


The driver side is where things were a little rough, the only seized bolt on the truck was the rear shackle to frame mount. It was cut out but also was seized in the shackle bushing. Luckily since we do these kits nearly weekly I grabbed two shackles that had come off a 3k miles 2023 F350 and they were the same dimension as the 06. So 05-25 seem to share a lot of parts.
Then to relocate the hanger, they say you either need the worlds skinniest hands or to drop the fuel tank. We had a cross roads here, we could just drop the tank, finish the kit and put it back it and be done sunday. Or because we had plans in the next month or two to add a Titan 60 gallon tank, we could pull the tank fully out and order in the new tank so we only have to do it once. Currently Daryl's sitting pretty on the new Carli kit, but I can't test drive till Wednesday when the new tank gets here. But we will be looking at around 550-600 miles of off road range and 875-1000 miles of highway fuel range.

But Daryls sitting with 1" of rake, and at 2.5" taller,

Once I get the new tank in and the truck out on the road more pictures will come.

 

super sick build! I also have the 2.7l reg cab taco. I see the 4x innovations skid plates fit yours. Any mods needed? on the site they specify only 3.4l models

 

oh wow! didnt expect you to put that kind of suspension on the truck! looks great man! the fuel tank are you going long range?

 

They fit perfectly, zero modifications needed. They were a direct bolt on and have worked really well on this truck. The Oil drain hole is slightly offset for the 2.7 but nothing critical to fitment.

 

With the amount of weight on this truck it was worth going for the King kit to help from overheating the shocks. The tank is from Titan, they make a ton of diesel tanks for the full size trucks.

 

ah that makes sense should ride really nice! sounds like a nice tank! even thou fueling that thing is gonnna hurt haha

 

Thank you so much! You still in CO? I go to school at CU Boulder. if you ever go wheeling shoot me a message.

Also where'd you get your parts laser cut? I'm a Mech Engineer at CU and want to get some of my parts cut up but not sure where is a good spot. Let me know!

 

You fill up half as much so often times I can wait out higher prices or I wont have to fill up in small towns with higher fuel prices. It usually works out to be cheaper. That was my experience in my Ranger.

 

Yup I live out North of Fort Lupton. I'll definitely try to shoot you a message when I go out.
As far as laser cutting I typically go through Oshcut, they do both plate and tube cutting and plate bending. Send cut send also is good but I find them more expensive for certain items. I have wanted to try Topocut, its a local service started by my friends at Sherpa Equipment Company but I haven't had a need to have anything cut recently.

 

ya that is fair. im looking at getting the oem 35 gal tank from the f150 to swap into my truck lol. but got other things to do first!