Sup yall,
I have had my 4Runner for 3-4 years now. I used to be a member on Yotatech for a while, but then I just stopped going because at that time I didn't have the funds to do any mods, which made me unhappy. During that time though I had actually contacted Good Times to find out the details behind his build, and was actually incredibly close to attempting to make an East Coast version of his Runner (BTW Sorry to hear about what happened, good luck with your rebuild). I had it all figured out, but my only problem was the cost and the shipping cross country for the LT suspension! Oh well. Now though the prices are double what they were when I first looked! Its crazy. But for now, I am finally going to be able to put some money into my truck! I have a few ideas, a few things Im gonna try differently, and maybe something crazy in there.
For my ideas, I was first wondering if anyone knew where I could get some diagrams of the 4Runner's frame? (plz help here!)
All of my life my dream truck has been the 1st gen Runners, I just loved the way they looked with that top that could come off. Well I want to try to do that for a 4th Gen (specifically, mine ).
What I was initially thinking was that I could just chop off the top half from behind the driver's seat on back, put in a roll bar behind the passenger seat, and mount the rear door on a fabricated rear bumper. I was going to get a soft top and maybe figure if I could somehow keep the old roof as a hard top (could be impossible). Well, it turns out that my 4Runner has a sunroof/moonroof (something that I actually love), so that idea is semi ruined.
So my next idea was to see if I could remove the area from about the rear seat handles back, (I feel like that may be where the mechanism for the moonroof ends and install a roll bar in the place of that last pillar to assist holding up the roof (it would be sort of at a steeper angle then the current pillar). I'm not really sure how well this would work and unless I can get around the problem the sun roof imposes I may have to scrap the plan entirely.
For the rear I was thinking of a fabricated bumper that would have to have a pole or something that I could attach the rear door to (either a swing door from the left or maybe even a folding down door). The bumper would also hopefully have a tire carrier and some other stuff.
I would love to do LT suspension in the front but that may be just too expensive for me! Otherwise I may just do an OME 3" all the way around. Not quite sure still what tires I would want to get.
Well, now you pretty much know what my rig's hopes and dreams are. Now time to see if I can make them happen
Peace