Bill's 84 Chevy powered 4Runner

[tack427]

My names Bill and my offroading addiction started about 4 years ago.

I went hunting with some friends for Black bear near old Florida road in MA and after spending half a day riding in the back of a slightly modded Tacoma, my mind was set on getting a truck. But i didn't know what i wanted or where to begin. (I'm a car guy). About 2 months later I was in the store on the base i was work at at the time (I'm a Sgt in the Army) When leaving after paying for beer and cigs i saw a for sale sign on the wall. It said 84 Toyota 4runner 4x4 big wheels Chevy engine $800. So I took a ride to the other side of post and saw it. From what i was told a coastguard guy owned it and was sent to alaska for duty and left it to his neighbor to sell. Sure enough it had a Chevy 350 with Chevy trans in it, A body lift, and some blocks under the springs. It also had a dead battery and popped freeze plugs. I talked to the woman who was holding it and told her it needed a lot of work but was instreaded in it. She replied $600 cash and its yours. The next day the cash was in her hand and the 4 runner was on a trailer.

The day I got it home.




Spent the next spring and summer swapping motors and doing body work.






I've Wheeled it twice. Once with my hunting buddy's and once with NTC. these are the pics from both trips.

[tack427]

I'm overseas with the Army right now, but i'll be home this winter and have a lot of parts waiting to be installed.

Trail gear classic front and rear lift kit with hi steer
TCI trans
Lockers front and rear
Knuckle rebuild kits
Be Cool 4 row raditor
Advance Adapter headers
All pro rear bumper
Build front bumper with 2" receiver for winch cradle

Still need to buy:
New tires
Longfields axles
Winch

Some of the mods I've done since getting it are:
*Diff breathers (front to hood level - rear to stock roll bar)
*CB
*No rear seats - I built a tool/junk box in the bed area with 4 doors that lay flat and is big enough to put a air mattress in for overnight trips.
*Fiberboard panels in the back with cheap 6x9s
*Camo cloth door panels and tail gate panel
*Rear window motor rewiring
*Trail gear sliders
*Ratchet shifter
*4 spot lights on light bar with floods for each side
*Speaker carpet on the roof of the removerable top
*Bed liner in the cab
*Trans cooler
*Lots of small stuff i cant remember right now

What's left
*Install advance adapters header to replace my shorty's (with shorty's the exhaust pipe hits the front axle on compression The AA will fix that problem)
*Move my tail pipes to the side of the truck or angle them down (the fumes come in while i drive if the rear window is open)
*Install the be cool radiator (overheats on the trail)
*Install my third motor and second trans (The motor is fine but I've built another just for this truck and the trans is slipping)
*Rebuild a spare transfer case
*Cut the set of door to make half doors (full hinge kit from Adam @ 4x Innovations)
*Rebuild both axles and install lockers.
*Rebuild knuckles
*Install Trail gears classic front and rear lift kits With all the extras.
*Buy steel for front bumper*Install a chevy power steering pump and get rid of the mickeymoused toyota pump
*New 35x12.50 tires BFGoodrich Mud King XT Tires - Cheap tires but thats what the truck has now and they been good to me
*Paint my rims OD green to match my sliders and thinking about painting the truck to match my HMMWV

[tack427]

I'm Home now and this is whats installed.

Trail gear classic front and rear lift kit with hi steer
Locker in the front
Knuckle rebuild kits
New tires
Longfields axles
Rebuilt a spare transfer case
Rebuilt both axles and install lockers.
Rebuilt knuckles

Still waiting to be installed:
TCI trans
Be Cool 4 row raditor
Advance Adapter headers
All pro rear bumper
Build front bumper with 2" receiver for winch cradle

Still need to buy:
Winch

[tack427]

Test fitted my Be Cool radiator and ran in to some problems. The new radiator is about 3 inch's taller then the stock one. The upper rad hose input is on the drivers side facing the fender and the lower hose is is on the pass side (I can deal with that). No transmission cooler (I going to use an external anyway's)
Due to the height of the rad I couldn't close the hood if it was mounted on the part of the frame that connects the two frame rails (That's where I want to mount it). And mounting it behind the crossmember wouldn't work because of spacing with the 350.

So I had to take out the hot knife and sawzall and do some surgery.



Now it fits good and the hood closes. I just have to cut the inner hood alittle so the cap will fit under it.


All finished

[tack427]

I installed a mojave heater because my core was leaking and the sheetmetal behind the blower motor was rotted and leaking. I found a almost perfect air duct piece at Home depot that I attached to the air output on the mojave heater. I only needed 1 inch of dryer duct to connect it to a sheetmetal plate I made and screwed the original "Heater box work" that I cut in half with a sawzall. Here is some before and after pics.











Since these pics I removed the rest of the dash for painting, and I want to install a 3inch aftermarket tach in to the Toyota gauge panel with the help of some Plexiglas and a dremel tool.

[tack427]

I removed the stock temp gauge because it didn't work and planed on using a cheap aftermarket set up. I wanted to clean up the dashboard and not have the tach mounted by the windshield so this is my reason for cutting the stock cluster.





If I had the money I would have cut the whole cluster and add autometer gauges, speedo and turn signals like my Chevy Malibu.
It's getting there I just wish the tach was a black face dial, But oh well its payed for and I don't have to mount it on my dashboard anymore. Which cleans up the area well





This is my cluster from my 83 Malibu. I did this job a few years ago. It came out really nice but the gauges cost alot and the wiring was a pain.

[tack427]

Still need to tighten up some wires and other stuff and fix a leak behind the dash once we get a little warm weather. Here is a few pics I wish I didn't have the huge crack in the passangers side but I really don't care.




I also started fitting my seats and building roll bar behind the seats for the 4 point harness to be bolted to.
Once I get it fitted I'll put down some dynamat I had left over from my DD and a carpet.

Left over Dynamat installed I only had a 3'x5' piece




Carpet and seats.

[tack427]

Update.

Removed my slipping chevy TH350 tranny and old toyota transfercase. While on the bench I mocked mounted the rebuilt yota transfer case to the advance adapter mounting adapter to my new TCI TH350. But once I removed the tail shaft from the new TCI TH350 to mount it to the AA Adapter, I had a problem the output shaft on the new tranny was too long, the old tranny was from a truck and had a a much shorter output shaft. So I now knew I had to tear down both transmissions to switch the shafts. I never opened a auto tranny before other then to change the filter or install a shift kit and was a little nervous about it. But it wasnt really as hard as I thought it would be now I can take one apart it 15mins and put it all back together in under a hour.

Here's a pic of the old tranny stripped down.


Just incase anyone wants to see what a chevy tranny mounted to a toyota TC looks like heres 2 pics.

[tack427]

Started my front bumper build yesterday. Now I know why most bumpers cost $300 or more. I spent most of the day building it and I'm still not finished yet. Here is what I've done so far.

Bud built Winch plate


This is what took me all day to build.


Still need to:
*Cap the ends of the upper tubes add supports for the uppers end to the frame
*Mount and wire winch
*Add d ring clevis under winch plate
*Front blinkers
*Down tubes from upper to lower near plate to help protect winch

Day 2:

Added two pieces of pipe to the bumper today and the mounts for D rings.



Side shot


I dont think its to bad for a backyard build. I still have some more to do to the bumper before I can call it done.