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.