y=mx+b's 05 4runner Build Thread

Sometimes things don't always work out as planned....

1.5" thick ice chunk went through the radiator, and I kinda need that part. More pictures to come, both good and bad! I did get GoPro video of the whole time I was out there. The 4runner did really well, too bad it had to end a bit early. Since I was a bit far away from home, towed to a Goodyear and they can get the parts and do it tomorrow.

 

My First Time Off-Road at AOAA + Radiator Damage
I mentioned briefly in a previous post that I would be going to AOAA with MORE (Maryland Off Road Enthusiasts) do to some green trails and get my feet wet in offroading. I packed all of my tools, the spare CV I have, jack, jack stands, and all of my new recovery gear. I met a group of 10ish in Towson and we made a convoy up there. When we got there, I was surprised at the turnout. There were 55 people from MORE and a few more people with 4wds, SXS, atv, bikes, etc. Here I am parked next to the 4runners. I was the only 4th gen with this group, but I did see another 4th gen at the trailhead parking lot


I have a dinosaur age GoPro I purchased when I thought I lived an action packed life, only to realize I don't do anything interesting. So I dug it up for this trip and apologize for the mediocre quality pics from the video

We broke into 3, 20 person groups and I was second in line of group 3. Starting on the trail, we entered down this nice and rocky hill. Its hard to see the terrain with this camera angle, but when driving it felt very adventurous and fun. We also crossed a few water area with some ice on top, and this bit me in the butt later.


I opted out of this one with my stock 4runner haha. This blue jeep was the leader and he got a bit hung up on the ice. Seeing how deep it was, I went arround


I enjoyed going on these high sided turning paths and wiggling through the trees. Also encountered some traffic


more tree wiggling


Around this time, I noticed the temp gauge getting a little bit above halfway. No big deal, we weren't going fast for wind to blow through the radiator and assist the fan like on the highway. I noticed the needle slowly moving some more and it was approaching the edge of the little gray section in the center 1/3 of the gauge. I am completely new to the off-roading and still wasn't completely sure if this was normal. I noticed the needle would go up and down like 1/8" inch depending on how I was oriented on the terrain and figured the temps would change depending on if I was putting more or less demand on the engine. I radio, and they say its normal to get a little warm, but we can slow down at the top of this hill. Fine, I can make it to the top of the hill okay. Nope. At this point I don't notice that the heat is no longer working because I had the window open to watch myself and talk to people. As I'm going up the hill, the needle starts going up really fast and I stop halfway up because the temp is scarring me. I radio again and the guy behind me says to just go ahead. I shouldn't have listened to this, because at the top of the hill the needle went straight to the ketchup and I immediately get over and shut it off.


I now know something is up, but I'm not sure. I limp it along after the needle dropped to halfway and we stop for lunch.


Now I can give it a proper inspection, which I should have done when I pulled off to let it cool of the first time. I look underneath, and sure enough an ice chunk had made its way right through the radiator. Oddly enough, the A/C condenser, which is right in front of the radiator, barely got touched. I know it must have occurred on one of the puddle crossings, just not sure when.


So we we're close to the trailhead now, and I limp it back. No one seemed keen to come along with, but the did give me directions and I followed the signage. From there I got it towed through my insurance which I have coverage for. Unfortunately I had to wait 4 hours in the 20 degree weather, thankfully I brought a bunch of layers. The only shop I could find open on the weekend that could also get the part was 60 miles away. Thankfully the tow truck driver was also a Toyota guy with a 1989 pickup minitruck.


The shop was able to get a radiator on Sunday and replace it the same day. Unfortunately this wasn't something that I could do on my own in this situation. I am very thankful for the work done by Goodyear of Hummelstown, PA. Looking back, there are a lot of learning experiences to take from this.

1. Consider all possible failure modes. I didn't think about thick ice being present, but now I know
2. If temps are getting high, pull off sooner rather than later, even if its not a great place to stop
3. Keep warm clothes with you when its cold. I brought a lot of layers thinking it was overpacking, but it turned out to be what I needed when things went bad

I am frustrated with my past self for letting it overheat fully, especially on the 03-05 v6. I plan to do some tests for exhaust gas in the cooling system and also probably change the oil earlier and send off a sample to ensure everything is good. So far no white smoke out of the exhaust when I started it up after sitting for a few hours when I got home and no misfires. Only time will tell the extent of damage, but what has happened is in the past, and I can only learn from these mistakes

If its really clapped, may be a writeup on how to swap 1GR-FE coming soon lol, but I hope not. I am worried about the heat cycling though since it was really cold out and rapid heating and cooling is of course not good.

Radiator Carnage
I asked to keep the radiator as a souvenir lol. Here are some of the damage pics


While the center area is where it is mostly visibly damaged, I believe the leaks were mostly from where the tubes cracked going into the end caps


I now need to either invest in one of these from RCI or build one myself.

 

Radiator Flush
When I had my radiator replaced in the middle of nowhere ( ), they refilled my radiator with green coolant and mixed it with whatever pink was still in the system. I wanted to get all that mixed coolant out and replace with pink.

I picked up 3 gallons of Toyota SLL pink, 10 gallons of distilled water, and a fancy no-spill coolant funnel. Unfortunately couldn't get any radiator hoses in time because of poor planning on my part. Because I live in an apartment without a good place to work, was limited on when I could work. I still would like to replace these in the future

I started by draining the old coolant into a drain pan, and emptying the reservoir with a turkey baster


After the reservoir was empty, I removed it to clean further. x3 10mm and it was out


Now this is where I made it more difficult for myself. I didn't want to try and remove the thermostat, so I had to wait for it to heat up on its own. This took much longer than I had anticipated

After filling the rad with distilled water, I monitored the temperature with TorquePro as it heated up, and periodically squeezed the rad hoses to release any trapped bubbles. As it approached 180°, the clear slowly turned greenish


It was fun to watch the coolant in the funnel change colors, but it certainty took forever


To speed up the process, I blocked off the air flow with carboard. This helped, but still took forever to heat up. When draining the water and refilling, it would drop to around 160° and have to climb back up. I did it this way for about 3 gallons.


For the other 8ish gallons, I would fill the radiator, burp what I could for 3 minutes, ensure expansion tank was full, exchange no spill funnel for rad cap and button everything back up, drive a 10 mile loop with some hills to ensure temp passed 180° for thermostat to open and coolant to fully mix, return home and crack rad drain to relieve pressure and drain into pan, pop rad cap and refill, then repeat. Eventually, I got to these last two drains that I was satisfied with. The last one wasn't perfectly clear, but whatever was left had diluted enough and it was getting late


Then I did 3-4 drain and fills to get the Pink SLL coolant in. I still have a bit more, so I want to cycle those in soon.


The next day I laid out all of my drain samples next to each other for comparison. Its about one every flush, but sometimes not enough would drain to empty the 1 gallon jugs. I did maybe 12-15 flushes


It is interesting to see how it started out orange and diluted out to clear. I expected it to be more green, since thats all I could see from the radiator cap. I guess it makes sense green + pink = orangish


Not pictured, but I did use one of those little coolant temperature dials to ensure it would be okay for the local temps. I took samples from the expansion tank and from the radiator drain after driving about 200 highway miles. The highest freezing temp reading I got was -10° iirc, so that's good enough for my location.

Edit: Did the coolant tester again, and looks like we're safe until a nice and frosty -20°

 

Front Bumper Cover Filler Skid Plate
Since my radiator decided to chomp on a big ice cube through this nice opening in the factory bumper cover, I wanted to build a little filler skid plate to go here. RCI sells and off-the-shelf piece for this area, but I wanted to make my own. Heres a nice before and after, I'll update this when I finish painting the filler. Also, this isn't the welding project I teased earlier on in this build thread, school got in the way and I still haven't finished that. That's a low priority, just for fun project.


Heres my basic drawing and materials. I thought the wide piece was long enough to cover the entire gap, but it wasn't, so I spliced the two pieces together


Once the basic shapes were cut out, I got them read to weld together. I beveled the edge to see how that would affect welding vs a straight butt on the opposite side, and it definitely made a nice place for the puddle to form. then a nice wire wheel to get rid of the last bit of scale, and it was ready to weld


I did little 1-1.5" stitches to try and prevent this piece from taco-ing on me. I also flipped every few welds as an additional measure


Some welds I thought turned out looking nice


And some welds were bad haha


Adding some tabs, so it can bolt on with the stock front skid


I then cut some triangle pieces to fill the open area between the two widths. I was pretty careful with the measurement of everything, so I was very satisfied when these fit without really any touch-up


Welded these solid too. Accidentally blooped a hole, but that was filled in. Other than that mistake, these turned out well


Now that everything was held together, I got to give its first real test fit. I hadn't bent the tabs yet, so this gave me a good idea of how much bend was needed. Grinding the tabs rounded at the head also helps it to fit nicely

 

Front Bumper Cover Filler Skid Plate (Continued)
As normal, I've got way too many pictures to share haha

Bending the tabs, so they fit the upward angle appropriately


And now one of the first real test fits with everything all bent to fit


I then drilled holes for these little tabs. They really aren't doing anything structurally, just holding the front edge of the skid up. I do worry about these popping off or bending, but I'm not doing any crazy offroading right now. Also the skid is long enough that the front edge sits under the crash bar. This just needs to deflect ice from hitting my 4runner in the crotch


After everything fit well, I ground down all the welds so it was smooth. I started with a rock wheel, then followed up with a flap wheel to smooth further. I also started grinding on the back, realized it would never get seen, then stopped halfway lol


And 2 welds that I was satisfied with, I actually left on the face as a reminder that I made it


I had some primer left over from painting the headlight fillers, so I used that here just to get rid of it. It was filler primer too, so it filled in the little scratches/sanding marks left from the flap wheel. Then black paint on top of that. No pictures of it installed yet since I scratched it on the drive from home to my apartment and want to painted fully. I know its probably going to get scratched up eventually, but I want to delay the rust as much as possible lol

 

True North Fabrication's Front Recovery Points
Last Week, I ordered the TNF Front Recovery points so I would have a good place to get yanked from, or to yank from. This is something that I'm not sure I would trust my amateur fabrication skills on at this point, and I also didn't really have time to fabricate them before this weekend. I ordered them here: 4th/5th Gen 4Runner Recovery Points | TNF. I went with these over the Apex Overland Recovery points, because they were cheaper lol and [MENTION=117203]Drift Monkey[/MENTION] got them first and they looked good

In the box came both recovery points, some bolts, and a sticker


Here is how the welds look.


Heres my paint setup. Put them in a box to reduce overspray and try to keep paint off of my welding table. Had only enough primer for the back lol, so the coverage on the front is only okay around the edges/contours. I'll repaint them when I can do it legitimately. I wanted them kinda bright color so they could be seen when needed, so I painted them safety yellow. I see a lot of recovery points red, and I'm not a fan of red, so yellow was a good alternative.


And here they are installed. I chased all the threads with a tap before installing the bolts. The kit didn't come with new bolts to the sway bar, so I picked up x4, m10x1.25 cap screw bolts to replace them. There's also an m8x1.25 bolt above, which was included and I installed. There is one more bolt that mounts to the front skid mounting crossmember, but the included bolt didn't fit the threads, and it was too late to go back to the store, so I left it out.


And here they are installed with my filler plate. I'm satisfied with everything and both the filler and recovery points did their jobs at AOAA this weekend.


AOAA
I went to AOAA this weekend for redemption, and I will type that up with pics tomorrow. Its already past my bedtime lol. Heres a teaser pic, it was snowy!

 

Redemption at AOAA + Making Friends through T4R.org/TacomaWorld!
This weekend, I was planning to head up to Rausch Creek with a FB group, but their communication/planning was terrible and Rausch Creek is really expensive ($22 for a 1 yr "membership" + $56/day!!!). Instead, I met up with [MENTION=558387]Broke_Runner[/MENTION] to head up to AOAA for the day Saturday.

The ground was covered in snow, which was cool! I've driven in snow on pavement, but never offroad. Certainly a fun experience, and certainly gained some slippery driving skills that may come in handy on the road as well. Some pics from my Dino age GoPro, can click the pic to see larger in Imgur


Pretty early on, we hit a pretty icy hill, and I didn't give it enough beans to get up. I got to where you can see the icy tracks, and slid backwards down the hill. Thankfully, it was pretty controlled and I just guided it down the tracks we made coming up. Other than this which was partially driver error, the Falken Wildpeaks did not let me down!


We took the Scenic Route, which was a little misleading lol. The scenic Route on a hike is usually the easy route, but this was definitely more tricky+snow than the last time I was at AOAA on greens. Here was also passed into the limited recovery area, which was daunting at first, but not too bad. Hard to see b/c the pics are low quality, but there were rocks all over the place that felt like landmines to my stock 4runner. Broke_Runner also taught me about using Low gear in 4LO to make descending down rock and slippery hills, like this one, more controlled


We arrived at the Scenic lookout place, which was a nice view!


Shortly after, some crazy dudes on ATVs showed up and crashed the party. If theres one thing I've learned about other riders from Dirt Biking and 4running, is that ATV riders are the worst lol


Some surprise water features made me scared for my new radiator. I was scarred from last time, and always checking my temps. Thankfully my filler plate blocked anything from getting up in there


Some more rocks, which may not pose an obstacle to most, made me fear for my undercarriage and tires. I tried to drive over all the big and safe looking ones to avoid dragging the bottom


Then all of a sudden we were driving around, and Broke_Runner dipped to the side really quickly.


This was my first recovery, and I feel bad that it took me forever to get everything hooked up. Reviewing the video, it was about 3-4 minutes, but felt like forever since I had to move up twice to get situated. I'm glad I impulse bought those TNF recovery points, because my swiss cheesed stock tie downs would have ripped right off. Reverse recovery also not the best in hindsight, but I wanted to get him out


After he was out, we went back and there was about 4" thick ice that covered the ground, hiding the water


Navigating some trees is always fun. Not overly difficult, but I like wiggling through

 

AOAA Continued
We ended up circling back and went where the ATV drivers had come from. They had been spinning their tires and revving their engines at us by the scenic outlook, so it was no surprise things were more torn up. Some wet rocks uphill as well added a fun challenge.


Of Course, we ran into some more ATV drivers that saw us and stopped in the middle of an icy hill - the worst place they could have stopped. Thanks to Broke_Runner's quick thinking, I didn't run into him/them at full speed, but I slid down the whole hill and bonked his rear bumper just as I was stopping.


We finished for the day and took some pictures at this big scoopy thing. I assume it was used for mining Coal in the area, as the first A in AOAA is for Anthracite, which is Coal.


Unfortunately, we ran into some issues shortly after leaving. Broke_Runner's truck stopped running suddenly on the side of the road. We scrambled around to find a U-Haul to bring it back on, and they gave us a 20' truck to tow our 2011 Honda Civic with. Kinda overkill, but thats the only one they wanted to give up for one-way


The next day, we unloaded it off the trailer, and removed the interior. It was a bit difficult to get it into the driveway, and we even contemplated running a strap through the house to a grassy area in between homes. After deciding neighbors might not like a 4runner in their backyard, we pushed it up front to front bumper


Seat Jackers
I also bought one pair of the DesertDoesIt seat jackers, as I've been feeling my legs are kinda unsupported by the stock seat. Since moving to MD in January, I averaged about 95 miles/day. My daily commute is 50 miles round trip, but doing weekend exploring has really increased my overall seat time. The seat jackers are kinda expensive, but I spend enough time in the car for them to hopefully be valuable. They should be here in the next week or so

 

06+ Projector Headlights
Well its taken me forever to write the install up, but I've had these headlights on for about 2 months now. I like the look of the housings, but am still looking for some bulbs that I like. Thats one of the reasons it took me forever, I wanted output shots but don't like the headlight bulbs I have. I'll get output shots later

Here is a sneak peak of the final outcome, and a mid swap comparison.


Sanding the Housings
I picked these up from someone in a buy/sell/trade Toyota FB group for $67 shipped, which was a steal for OEM housings!


Here's a look at the condition of the lenses when I received them. I knew I was buying used housings, but they were not in bad shape.


I got to work sanding the housings. I used wet/dry sand paper progressed from 600 > 800 > 1000 > 2000 to sand out all of the oxidation. I wrapped the sandpaper around a wet sponge, and continually sprayed soapy water on the housings to lubricate while sanding


There were some little stress "cracks", but they weren't noticeable to the touch, and you can't even see them now that they're done


Then when the headlights formed a uniform haze, I wiped them with isopropyl alcohol to clean the plastic juice off off and take a look.


Painting the Trim
Next, I needed to paint the trim that goes under the headlight. Turns out, Dorado Gold Pearl is a really hard color to track down in the off the shelf spray cans. Probably because its too old man to keep in stock haha. I ended up using a Nissan color, which the color code escapes me. I still have the can, but its it my house and I'm at my Apartment, so I will update this when I figure it out. Color wasn't a perfect match either, so may be best not to copy it either haha

Here is me thinking it was a great match by looking at it in the shade, not sure why my brain didn't think to compare in the sun


I began by scuffing the trim pieces and priming. Peep my elaborate setup of cut TP rolls to hold the trim up


Laying down the first coat of paint, it wasn't as hard as I thought!


The first look at my painted trim vs the body color. Again, in the shade


After letting the first round of paint dry for a few days, I decided I didn't like the orange peel of the paint, and wanted to flatten it out. This wasn't the smartest idea, because it resulted in the edges of the trim flattening out, and this can be seen if you look closely at the final project. Not really noticeable though, and probably I only see it because I know it's there.

 

Painting the Trim Continued
For the second round of painting, I dreamed up this wild contraption to hold the trim pieces up for painting all around the edges. Extra Long hot glue sticks are glued to the backs, then stabbed through a chocolate milk container.


Clear Coating
To preserve the clarity of the lenses, protect against UV rays, and fill in the haze from sanding, I used SprayMax Automotive 2K Clearcoat. Make sure you clean all the solidified Headlight Plastic Juice off before applying. The first coat went on with a lot of orange peel, but it smoothed itself as it dried




The trim pieces also got clear to keep them protected


Install Time!
I was worried that install would be difficult with the tricky bolt under the bumper. This turned out to be a non-issue and was easily accessible by removing the front fender liner clips and dropping it down


Where I did have a bit off difficulty was this trim piece that mates with the grill as it comes down. The 03-05s have a bolt here, whereas the 06-09 headlights did not have threads in the housing. This threaded block on the 03-05 headlights kept getting hung up on the trim, so I had to back this bolt out tediously a little at a time. Undoing the clips on the back gave a bit of wiggle room, but not a whole lot




Finally got them out, but I mangled this little piece on one side. It still holds fine, so I'm not worried about it




Another interesting note is the 03-05 housings match the smooth curve of the front, whereas the 06-09 lights are a bit bulgy. This makes sense, as the 06-09 flares are also more bulgy, so they would match. 03-05 on left, 06-09 on right


Wiring
Just a quick note on this, since I didn't do anything fancy. 03-05 have the turn signals in the bumper, so I didn't move them up to the headlights. I will when I do a front bumper, but for now they're good in the stock location. I did have to use a 9006 to H11 adapter for the low beams, and I ordered a second set to keep in the glovebox just in case. Other than those two items, nothing fancy and no tearing into the stock wiring. Just plug and play

Done!
And just like that, they're in! I love how they turned out, despite the trim not matching in the sun haha. When I find bulbs I like, I'll get some output shots!

 

Sneak Peek
Here is a sneak peek at the first actually "built" thing to come out of this "build thread". Just a sneak peek for now, going to do some more off-roading this weekend, then next weekend will finish it up

 

Wolf Den Run
This weekend, I went to Wolf Den Run State Park in MD with a local group. This was a much muddier area, which was a fun change. So far, all my trips out have been something different. First was just easy stuff over light rocks and some water, second was snow, and this weekend was watery mud.






And of course, where I didn't replace the one tank skid bolt under the driveshaft, the skid bent down and was annoyingly rubbing on the driveshaft. So I had to get under the dripping muddy frame and zip tie it back up. This one:


Then we stopped for a lunch and to let a ZJ guy fix his radiator. Fan clutch wasn't working and it overheated, blew the upper radiator hose off and part of the plastic end cap. Thankfully no one was in the area when the hose blew, but it was loud and steamy. He ended up JB welding the radiator end cap back on, removed all the fan stuff, and drove it home without any more problems!


Interestingly enough, there was a guy with a lifted outback that did pretty well. I was surprised, but I guess it was small enough to snake through a lot of the areas that the larger rigs had to go over.


I'm not looking forward to washing the mud off. Lucky for me, this was more wet than sticky mud, so hopefully it comes off without a whole lot of effort lol


Then we continued on too some more adventurous areas for the afternoon, including one blue trail, which I was nervous about for my stock 4runner.

Here was the first more difficult part. I can't remember if this was one of the blue areas, but we did have to stack rocks here, since I was getting caught up on the front radiator crossmember on a rock. Picture should be expandable for better viewing. Sorry for dino GoPro quality, eventually I'll get a better driving camera


And here was the second difficult part. Hard to see the rocks, but I've annotated the arrows better. Right was too small and nestled by the tree to get over, so went over the left. With my saggy stock height and worn suspension, I got hung up on my left side frame and lower link mounts. Again, we had to stack rocks for me to get over.


Any thats a pretty much it. Didn't get as many good pics, and the old GoPro vids aren't great enough quality to share a lot of them.


Mileage Update
I crossed 220k miles two weeks ago, and this weekend crossed 221k miles. That was 1000 miles in 9 days. Since moving to MD, I've driven about 95/miles per day, for a total of 6000 miles since January. Wowza, thats a lot of driving. My most recent oil analysis got lost in the mail during the snow I guess, but I'm already ready for another one. I just want to check on everything since the radiator incident.


Seat Jackers
On the theme of driving a lot, I've found the stock seat can sometimes feel unsupported under my thighs. I ordered the DesertDoesIt seat jackers to try and help with that. They definitely change the seat angle to hold your butt more, but I'm not quite convinced its better. I like the seat back straight up and down and am already at the most vertical position. So lifting the front of the seat makes it so I can't return the seatback the vertical angle position I had it before, if that makes sense

 

I'm bummed I didn't finish the skids this weekend due to rain, but I'll attach a little progress picture. Hopefully this weekend or next the front skid will be finished.

 

Nothing particularly interesting to update. This thread is mostly aimed to show the journey from being a 4runner newb, to wherever I end up, so I think its important to include some of the baby steps. I also want to documentation to exist for others that may have similar issues, like overheat on early 1GR, etc

Mostly wanted to post the oil Analysis to tie up the loose ends from the radiator crack incident.

Been tied up with various other things on the weekends, so no major progress on the skids. This weekend I'll have some time, but not enough to finish the first skid.

Oil Change - 221k miles - 4k interval

Changed my oil. Seems Shell Rotella Gas Truck 5w-30 is getting really hard to find. Last time I had to try two different walmarts, and this time 3 with no luck. Only found 5w-20 in the Gas truck. I like using the same oil for the consistency of analysis, so I was bummed. This time I used Pennzoil Platinum Full Synthetic 5w-30 made from Natural Gas. Honestly went with this one because I heard it on a radio ad lol, I guess the marketing worked.


Had the supervisor on the job as well. This is Abby, we got her when I was in the fourth grade and she is awesome


And here is the result of the last oil change. The oil change that spanned the radiator crack/overheat incident was lost in the mail. Fortunately, this one made it to Blackstone alright. I'm also glad I built up some data points before this, because when things go wrong, I have previous data to compare to. The overheat happened at about 215k miles, so I've now been 6k since that. Luckily, I seemed to escape without significant damage to the HG.


And I changed my air filter, since I don't remember when it was last changed. I got it from the dealer in hopes of finding some indication of who the supplier was, but no luck. I'm sure I could have just googled it too. Was only $5 more expensive than the parts store, so no biggie


Also reached this fun number!


Dobinson's Incoming!
I did order Dobinson's after getting hung up on my frame on the last off-roading trip. The original suspension now has 222k+ miles on it, so really time to replace that anyway.

Went with 3" all around because I like the factory rake and the rear "long travel" for all the flecks. Still haven't ordered the SPCs yet, but I'm hoping to squeeze them from Mevotech Adjustable on RockAuto.

For tires, I don't really want to do 285s because its too mainstream lol. I like 295s because they're slightly bigger, but might not limit uptravel as much from hitting the bottom of the fender/flare. Unfortunately, most 295s are almost as expensive as the Kenda Klever 35x10.5s, which gives me ideas haha. Also don't want to spend too much money because school is expensive, but also would be a great time to do a bumper lol. I'm really snowballing, this website isn't good for me

 

Front Skid: T-case and Oil Pan
I was waiting to post all of the pictures until I was finally finished, and I finally got all the welding done this weekend. I've got a lot of pictures to share, so this may be a long one

After my stock height off roading, the skids had certainly seen better days:

This was after the snowy and rocky AOAA trip


This bolt ripped out of the frame after Wolf Den, but the mud held it in the hanger lol


Here are the skids off, can see there's a tad bit of damage


So as a project and to save some money, I decided I would make some skids. I picked up 3ftx6ft of 3/16" plate from Metal Supermarkets. Pro tip: duct tape the edges so they don't cut your hands or your interior


To begin, I cut myself out a piece the rough dimensions of the front underside and some blocks to space down from the diff mounting arms. These blocks are 1/8" wall 2" square tube with 1/8" plate welded on top


I also knew I wanted it to be as high clearance as possible, so I cut a hole for the diff to pass through and bent the plate to match the height difference between the mid and rear crossmembers of the front skid. To bend, I scored the plate with a grinder, then clamped two boards on either side of the piece, and bent it to fit.




I then bent it the opposite way to fit up with the rearward crossmember. I kept the scores on the inside of the skid to reduce the amount of grinding/beautification I would have to do in the end, because it was angled up. Not a huge loss, but could have been better


Next, cutting a piece for the front. I kept this as a separate piece to try and make construction simpler. The top angle piece is bent as well, and this one was particularly hard because it was too slim to really get a good grasp on.

Here was also a potential improvement for clearance that I may make in the future. I miscalculated that the angled piece would be further forward when it reached the tip of the front diff arm


And here is the first look at the full skid underneath the 4runner. At this time, the weight is 37lbs

 

Front Skid: T-case and Oil Pan (Continued)
The next weekend, I got started on the diff bumpout cover





Because of the shape of the rearward crossmember, I needed to make some spacers. I ended up doing 3 of these 3/16" donuts higher. In hindsight, I should have made some little risers like the front had, just out of smaller material. Then I would have the bolt head below the surface


Next, I used some CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) to make the side gussets


These had to be clearanced on the passenger side for the LCA mount, but not on the driver side. I stared at these a while to try and figure out of the mounts themselves are different, and I think they are




I got caught up with a few other things on the weekends, so I didn't get back to this for another two weeks. Consequently, I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked

Next up was drilling the oil drain hole with a 2" hole saw. I made some marks with a sharpie in the x and y directions, then connected them with straight lines. And that method turned out to be fairly inaccurate, since my plug was splitting the line on my hole


Thankfully, I could just weld the cookie back in and try again. That is one big advantage to metal


Around this time, both of the holes I'd been using for the main mounts on the 2" blocks happened to strip out. I really should have expected this, since I already drilled and retapped them from when the stock bolts broke. There must have been some old bolt chunks that loosened up. Thankfully, the stock m8 weld nuts were able to be drilled and tapped to m10. I used one of those "impact rated" Milwaukee drill taps and it went smoothly until it didn't. The drill tap broke off in the hole!! I was being very careful back and forth to clear chips because I was skeptical of these, in addition to using my old and weak little 12v impact. Thankfully, it loosened up with a few hits with the needle scaler and wasn't really stuck in there. I was trying to disintegrate it with the needle scaler hits, but was able to just unscrew it with vice grips. I hate tapping holes upside down, and was really hoping this would be a good solution


Once that was resolved, I went to make some gussets for the plate. I didn't really get good pictures of this process, but I used the CAD to make templates and copy them to the plate. Two up on the front, two under/next to the pan, and one sideways one. I was scared to do one under the pan, as I didn't want one coming up and hitting it, but also wanted that area to be strong. I ended up using a little gusset there to hopefully meet both goals. the sideways one I put on there just as an experiment, since I don't usually see a lot of skids with one in this direction but its a long flat span


Front here, I was ready to begin finish welding. I started with the mounting blocks and the diff cover. I'm getting better at rounding my corners, which really helps to visually clean things up. These were also media blasted for fun, so thats why they are matte looking.

 

Front Skid: T-case and Oil Pan (Continued)
Before fully finish welding, I decided I needed some bolt protection for the rear bolts. Two layers of 3/16" was the perfect height to cover the bolt head, and I did two layers like stair steps to hopefully help it go over rocks easier. The interior area is large enough for the head, socket, and a decent amount of wiggle room


This is again where come clearance could be improved with making a tube block for the bolt to rest inside. Can see how both needs spacers on the back and protection on the top make it a tall arrangement. If these would sit below the plate surface, then that would be better for clearance. Oh well, its not terrible


And finally finished welded all the way. I ground all of the outside welds, and left the inside ones since no one will see them. Next step is to paint, and then it will be ready for install!


These are some welds that I thought looked good. Feel free to give constructive advice, as I'm always learning. Overall, not bad for the Harbor Freight Buzz box. It's the Titanium EasyFlux 125. Moving to a 20amp outlet from a 15amp really helped to minimize the trips to the breaker




I'll update with more pics once its painted and installed

 

A/C Condenser Replacement and Refrigerant Recharge
Replacement Tutorial: Last weekend, I replaced my A/C condenser. I bonked it pretty good when a 2" thick piece of ice plowed its way through my radiator this winter at AOAA (See here: <a target="_self" href="!m287301!4th-gen-t4rs/287301-y=mx-bs-build-thread-5.html#AOAAJan2021" >My First Time Off-Road at AOAA + Radiator Damage</a>). I wasn't sure if the condenser was actually damaged because I already had no refrigerant from my leaky evaporator, but thats a problem for a different day lol. For now, I wanted to replace the condenser in case it was damaged, so it didn't instantly leak down. Its getting hawt and no A/C sucks. I made a writeup on the replacement linked above, so I'll just put some overview pics here, and a little bit on a stuck bolt that was not included because I realized the torch was a better tool.

Bonkage


I started this project in my apartment in Maryland on a Wednesday night. I was planning to replace the condenser in one day, and recharge the next. I ran into some issues with the refrigerant line connection bolts breaking off in the mounting blocks.

The lower connection came of after a short fight, and with the assistance of a screwdriver in a little slot on the connection


The top connection broke off closer to the head, so more threads were backed up in the connection block. This one I wasn't able to free with what I had with me, so I walked to Home Depot for some bolt extractors and small drill bits. Was a nice night, and not a far walk. However, I should have just bought a torch lol


The screw extractors proved worthless in this situation, it was getting late, and I had to be up at 4:30am to get to work the next day, so I gave up. Couldn't even get the lower connection back together, so I zip tied it all up and decided to take care of everything back at home in VA on the weekend.


When I got home, I had already forgot about the torch idea and drilled 2 more holes like a chimpanzee


Then I remembered the torch, and it was smooth sailing. Very easy with a little bit of heat, since the different metals expand at a different rate


For fun, I was even able to pull the stub of bolt out of the condenser with ease after heating


Added a little pretty paint to these brackets that were looking a little crusty. Media blasted them with a little blaster I picked up for another project, which was fun and got them nice and clean.




After this, everything was easy and it came together without any other problems. I love having some nice crispy A/C

 

Front Skid Plate Install
This weekend, I finally got around to installing my front skid. I was planning to go offroading with a group Sunday, so I was ready for it to put in some work. Long story short, the trip all fell apart, only one other person showed, and the "trails" were just dirt roads between campsites. Regardless, the skid still went in.

Because I was planning to go somewhere up here in MD for the offroading, I stayed at the apartment to do this work. I was able to snag this one really deep parking lot in the back behind a stairwell, which I have deemed the wrenching corner. There's decent area in front of the spot work up front, while having the car parked at a normal depth


Only issue I had was the front attachment sat a bit lower than the crossmember.


I fixed this by using the weight of the vehicle to bent the front up and probably stretching the rear bolts lol.


And once it was all installed nice and beautiful, I realized that my front filler plate still needed to go on


When trying to fit bolt the skid and the filler plate up against the front crossbar, I realized that some longer bolts would probably help. After a trip to ACE to get some longer m8x1.25x30mm and m6x1.00x20mm bolts to replace the front skid mount bolts and the front filler mount bolts, I was now ready


Looking over the other features of the skid, I'm especially happy with how the rear bolt protection turned out. They seemed to hang pretty low when I was making it, but when installed they didn't look too low. I think the sacrifice is worth it to keep the bolt heads intact.


And the oil drain hole actually lines up!


And lastly I put a little wire loom on the trans cooler lines where they crossed over the skid side brace. I don't think there would be a problem with rub through, but better safe than sorry


I'll have to get a good picture of the installed skid in the daylight and update this. I also still need to drill some drain holes, like [MENTION=89794]BackOff[/MENTION] suggested, but ran out of time. Skid is likely coming of next weekend for another reason, so will be a good opportunity to get those drilled

 

New Fuel Tank Strap Pin Install + Skid Fixing
Well, 10 months later, I finally got around to replacing that one strap pin and putting the last bolt into the skid.

While Offroading, I got this big ol dent in the front of the tank skid. This caused the skid to sit lower on the tank up front, and the arm with the pesky bolt I never put back to rub the driveshaft. You can see where all of the paint got rubbed off where it was contacting. I zip tied the hanger up the best I could, but it wouldn't sit flush with the frame bracket and would occasionally rub. Turning the radio up fixed the rubbing noise lol.


When I went to try and just replace that bolt to hold everything up, I found the dent was obscuring the skid enough that the hole for the bolt no longer lined up. There was really only one option, which was to drop the skid. I was dreading this, but the whole job only took me about 1.5-2hrs


Now I could pound the dent out. I used a 3lb dead blow

A bit Hard to see, but Before


After


Looking at where the hanger was rubbing the driveshaft, looks like my zip tie job didn't hold it up high enough lol. This bad boy was sharp


While the skid was off, I wanted to replace the rear strap pin. When I originally did this job, I found one of the pins was pretty rusty so I ordered an other. I needed to have it wrapped up over the weekend, and the pin arrived late. Since then, its just been floating around. Heres the rusty one, I previously had to reinstall. It had a decent amount of antiseize left on it when removed, so that was good to see.


So I loosened up the driver side strap bolt just enough to get the pin out and swap in the new one.


I started the tank skid reinstall with the annoying bolt behind the driveshaft. It wasn't really that difficult the second time around. Using an open end wrench, I was able to get a 2/3 turn on the bolt each time. I dunno what was up when I did it the first time around, but it could have been the heat and time getting to me.


I then moved to the three driver side frame bolts. If you're skid is mangled like mine, then a tip is to put a screwdriver through one of the holes in the skid and through the frame hole. Leverage the screwdriver until the skid hole lines up with the frame hole. Then the next bolt in line can be further encouraged with a hammer, or if you're lucky, thread right in without issue. From there, the remaining tank skid bolts are fairly easy


Now this project has been officially completed, I'm satisfied. I wasn't keen on reinstalling that one bolt, but also knew the skid rubbing the driveshaft was not good. In the end, the pesky bolt wasn't too bad, and I'm glad its all complete now