3rd Gen 4Runner Frame Swap

[YotaFun]

Thought I would post my frame swap here from my build thread an explain a little on what I did.
WARNING: LOTS OF TEXT BUT I PROMISE PHOTOS LATER!

As many of you know, I found a hole in my frame this past summer.
Nothing huge but pretty much the sign of the beginning of the end to the frame.

This devastating find was found just after I was handed the title to the truck finally being able to make it all MINE!
So I had to figure out now what I should do.

I had many options.
1) Revert to stock and sell, and buy another to build
2) Buy another, swap everything, and scrap the old and keep what I could for spares
3) Patch and keep till if falls apart some more
3) Total it
4) Frame swap

As you all know, I am very attached to my 4Runner, I have gone many years, many miles, and have told many stories with her, and getting rid of her was really an option I wanted to avoid.

So I did some digging, obviously Toyota had frames available for the Tacomas and Tundras (and now Sequoias), so I wanted to see how much a 4Runner frame would be...
Got the part number and price, coming to just under $2500, for that price I could buy a reasonable 4Runner needing some mechanical work (which I could do) for that price, that and The 3rd Gen frame is no longer available.

So I went on the hunt for a truck.
While there was no time frame in which this needed to be done, I still wanted to keep my eye out on craigslist and such to see if a deal would come up.

So while searching far and wide (mostly in the south and some as far as Texas and Cali) I came across a diamond in the rough so to speak, in my stepdads home town of Roanoke (if you knew my life its kind of scary how this City has effected my life so much).

SO with a few calls and e-mails and event planning, I borrowed my neighbors diesel truck and his car trailer (rated for just under the weight of a 4Runner D'OH) and dragged my good buddy along with me, and in one weekend, roughly 800 miles later, and in a grand total after cost of truck, fuel, food, and tolls (around $1100) I had me a donor truck:



It was a perfectly running and movable Runner, only issue is the actuating motor in the transfer case was questionable...
The trans in this 4Runner was strong, pulled great, and was quiet, and since this truck has 269K, I have a feeling it was either replaced or rebuilt once, and decided that I wanted to attach it to my engine (which has 69K less miles) and put it on the donor frame with my body.

I got this donor back in October, and didn't do the swap till February (due to circumstances with where the swap was done).
I did some preliminary frame swap preps, gutted the donor interior, and took a spare J-shift case and swapped it over so I would just have to do the whole assembly when the swap day came up.

[YotaFun]

Separating the 4Runner body from frame is a very simple process and can be done in about 45-60 minutes! (Depending on rust and such)
I will update this post with a to do list of what needs to be done to separate body from frame.

But I have to tell you when I reached this point, in the back of my head I was like "Good God What have I gotten myself into!"




My Buddy hauling the body away with his 97' 5spd E-locked Runner

[YotaFun]

I wanted to clean the frame up of the mud it had on it from the wreck, plus the oil from the leaking engine (all seals on it where shot) and to prep it for paint.
I sprayed engine de-greaser all over the entire frame and pressure washed it:



This was the worst of the rust on the entire frame:

[YotaFun]

Painted, Gloss was the only thing I could find anywhere around the day before the swap, so gloss it is, now I can boast that my frame is cleaner then Paddlenbike's lol!!!

[YotaFun]

Then my baby came apart:



Sorry for the crappy cell pics, but its the best I could do with greasy hands...

[YotaFun]

After my frame was out, we began the process of swapping the transmissions from one engine to the other, and then engines from one frame to the other, unfortunately I did not get any pictures of this process since it is really a two person process and we were they only two people on hand lol!

So after that task was done, we began to move the good frame under my body and reassemble and get running.
So after one weekend we got her running and moving:




All I can say is being stock again SUCKS... ugh I miss being different, I miss having a really cool 4Runner....

[YotaFun]

So as of now this is how they sit:




So now I am at a cross roads as to what I would like to do.
On new years day, my buddy and I were having lunch, and since part out thread didn't have to much luck getting as much as I wanted moved, and it was a good running chassis at least my buddy was like "You know what we should do with that donor..." I already knew where he was going with this, "we should make a buggy out of it"

And so the idea started to fly!

He thinks I should ditch the body all together and just start throwing tubing together, two seats, a steering wheel and cage , throw some 37s on it and wheel the piss out of it.

I want to leave just fire wall and front seat flooring and build a cage around that, maybe even find some axles and do a SAS eventually"

We did the math and figured, with my neighbors car trailer (which we are looking to buy) and my old frame with cage, I can haul this new toy with my 4Runner, obviously I would be doing some upgrades like trans cooler, and get my Tundra brakes moved over, and install trail brake controller, but it can be done.

If I do my idea I still need to find a place to store this new toy, and also, I can't drive my 4Runner stock so I still need to piece together another lift kit and get some e rated 33" tall tires....

It can all be done I just have to figure out what I want to do.

What would be nice is I finally would have a toy to take to the trails and not worry about anything extreme cause it would be trailered home, and then I could use my 4Runner for winter wheeling trips.

Decisions decisions....

[paddlenbike]

Painted, Gloss was the only thing I could find anywhere around the day before the swap, so gloss it is, now I can boast that my frame is cleaner then Paddlenbike's lol!!!

Too funny! My clean frame certainly didn't last long. There's no rust but it's probably not as clean as you think it is.

That frame swap actually didn't look all that intimidating. I am a little confused though as to where your old modifications went? Was the suspension shot too?

If it were me, I would just build your 4runner back up and forgot about the buggy. The cost of two trail rigs is going to be high, unless you've got the cash to throw around.

[4x4mike]

It's nice to see that you're still rolling. For your neck of the woods gloss paint is probably better. Its slippery and if you hose it off you might be able to fight off the rust for awhile.

[YotaFun]

Too funny! My clean frame certainly didn't last long. There's no rust but it's probably not as clean as you think it is.

I don't know the last picture I saw, it practically looked like your Armoral'd the shit out of it lol!

That frame swap actually didn't look all that intimidating. I am a little confused though as to where your old modifications went? Was the suspension shot too?

Your right it really isn't that intimidating, unless you were doing it like the do with the tacomas, and getting a bare frame that only has the brake lines on it and you have to move EVERYTHING over from the old frame, this was I was really just swapping bodies and some other doodads here and there.
My old modifications are under the white body now with my old frame for now, I just haven't had a chance to move it over, but its all there in tact and still working well.
I do need to however change the bushing in the front coilovers and change the springs out, the bushing are shot and the springs are a little to rusty. (there will be a writeup on that later on when I get the time)

If it were me, I would just build your 4runner back up and forgot about the buggy. The cost of two trail rigs is going to be high, unless you've got the cash to throw around.

See that was the original plan, and then you know a few beers later and gears in the head turning, we were thinking strickly bugget build, I mean all thats left to modify would be cut the body off and do the tubing (granted I keep the firewall and front seat section), heck the price of the scrap of the rest of the body and tail section of the frame will give me enough to do the tubing.

The only real expensive part is putting together a lift for my truck again, but now that I know the basic components, plus working for Toyota and being able to get things at cost and searching, i could conceivably do the lift for under $300, the most expensive part would be finding tires, but there is always craigslist for that, and I have rocked stock tire size with the lift before for a while and wouldn't mind doing it again till I can afford maybe retreads or something, options are endless.

See my problem is here on the east coast, there is no real expedition travel like there is out on the west coast for you guys, well at least not as plentiful, and the only places to wheel up here are parks that are more geared for the weekend wheeler who wants to go out and bash the crap out of his rig. and after this frame swap I really don't want to do that to the Runner, if i have that trail budget buggy just sitting there for when I want to go hard I can, and then I could still build my 4Runner for expedition style stuff since it will see more road time and hopefully in the future some trips out west. But driving a normal 4Runner again sure does suck, especiall with those crappy rims and tires.