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Thread: YotaFun's Tess (97' SR5 4Runner)

  1. #21
    Right rear cam usually rusts due to the drain for the AC evaporator being right above it. Mine was a bit corroded when I removed it.

    Glad you got it in spec! Wish I could do that!
    2005 Lexus LX470 - Stock for now...

    1998 Toyota 4Runner SR5 V6 4x4 + a bunch of goodies. Lifted, Locked, Illuminated and Armored. Winner,"Best Offroad Truck" - 2010 Pismo Jamboree. It's been upside down and still drives me to work.

  2. #22
    The funny thing Sean, I was able to get that one to move a little bit!
    The front cam would not budge!

  3. #23
    Looking good Avy! I love seeing 4runners being given a new lease on life, I think they are one of a hand-full of vehicles worth the trouble. One of my favorite builds right now is THIS ONE where a husband and wife bought a 3rd gen as an anniversary gift and are completely going through it, as a team no less, to end up with one really nice expedition rig.

    Anyways, good stuff.

  4. #24
    Thanks!
    I think this one wont be staying pretty forever but its def gonna be staying road worthy for a LONG time to come.
    I will be getting the old arms I took out stripped and powder coated with new bushings for stepdads 4Runner which will need it in due time.

    If I inherit his 4Runner (hoping I do) the body and frame are still immaculate (just needs some armorall and a good buff lol!), I plan on turning that into a expedition rig that will hopefully be as clean as yours!

  5. #25
    To continue with the improvements, here is a few others I have done since I have had Tess back on the road.
    Besides the control arms I also changed out the lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rod ends:


    There was some play in the inner tie rod ends, and I figured the frame and suspension on it had about 280k on it by now so it was time.

    Then on the hottest week of the summer this year, my truck decided to be a little drama queen and over heat.
    It took a few attempts to tame this issue.
    My first round of replacements was a new radiator, thermostat, and radiator cap:




    The reason I replaced these is when it over heated the truck didn't push coolant into the overflow reservoir, it actually blew the top tank of the radiator. I figured out it was the cap that cause the coolant to not escape to the overflow.

    I thought I had the problem fixed at this point until the second hottest week of the summer hit and she decided to get sassy with me again.
    Finally figured out this time that the initial cause of the overheat was the fan clutch, so a new one went in:


    That fan clutch is off of a 05+ Tacoma with the Tow package.
    A friend of mine and I found out that 1) the clutch fits the 3.4 fan 2) the cooling properties of the clutch seem to run the truck cooler, I think its probably just my mental thought process, but the A/C was kicking really good once the fan was spinning at where it should be!

    Looking at the pic of the engine bay, I will slowly be changing out all the coolant hoses and vacuum hoses, over 200K on all of it, its about time...

  6. #26
    So in the process of putting Tess back to lift ready form, I have been slowly removing things from the old frame that has my lift to address some issues before transferring everything over to the new frame.

    First issue I wanted to address was my all-pro coilovers, which have seen there fair share of time and use:


    I bought these used and they already had about 15k on it, I added about another 50K to them.
    So they are a little worse for wear and I want to take care of that fact:
    One of them being the bushings in the shocks themselves:
    (sorry already popped it out...)


    As you can see this bushing was starting to get a little worse for wear, the others are on there way but not as bad:


    Now according to various sources, nothing on these shocks is replaceable or rebuild-able. But I didn't wan't to dish out the cost of new shocks for just the bushing cause the shock itself still functions perfectly.
    So I took some measurements to see if I could find anything to fit in there and then it started to occur to me, that those bushings look like they can press out, and they also look very familiar to the size of the bushings in stock 4Runner structs, which also had a replaceable bushing.
    So I ordered one:




    So with that figured out it was time to get these things apart and cleaned up:



    It was a PITA to get them apart, so much dirt and aluminum corrosion and rust built up but its apart...






    The springs are good but rusted, they for now will not be going back in but I do have replacements (heavier springs) to go in, I do plan on however getting these blasted and powder-coated and put back in eventually (They just flex soo good!):



    So those shock body's were a little beat so I decided to coat them and make them look some what presentable and keep the corrosion down a bit:





    Almost done:





    This is the paint I used on the shock bodies:


    This on the mounting brackets:


    Skeptical of how well this works, we shall see tomorrow morning, if its not that great, I will throw some rustoleum on them.

  7. #27
    Lookin' good! I need to pay mine some love soon!
    2005 Lexus LX470 - Stock for now...

    1998 Toyota 4Runner SR5 V6 4x4 + a bunch of goodies. Lifted, Locked, Illuminated and Armored. Winner,"Best Offroad Truck" - 2010 Pismo Jamboree. It's been upside down and still drives me to work.

  8. #28
    So to continue off the last post, this is how the mounts looked after 24 hours:



    So I painted them with two coats of this:




    Then it was time for assembly, through my process of reassembling everything underneath, this is the grease I have been using:

    I will try to get a better pic of it (still looking for my camera charger...)


    After threading the lock nuts it filled the threads nicely with the grease and made them very easy to turn FINALLY (taking them apart really was no picnic....)

    Here are the new springs:


    New bushings and the springs in, note they are at the no lift setting right now, the reason being is I can only compress them so much with the wall mount compressor, too tight and I can't get it out, but with the adjustment and lock nut spinning freely, doing it on the truck should be no problem:



    And with the mounts:

  9. #29
    So that project is done off to the next one, which is my rear lower links that I got with my lift a LONG time ago.
    When I bought my kit, Sonoran Steel was offering DOM lower links with Rubicon Express superflex joints.
    I have nothing but praise for these links off road, they worked great, help the rear flex amazingly, and never bent!

    However after almost 100k mile of road with my carelessness and lack of maint (never lubed) I wanted to take them off, apart and replace what is necessary. Living in the rust belt always proves to make the simplest task nearly impossible.

    To start off this adventure, when going to remove the arms, one came off the truck with out a hitch, the other on the other hand was a different story...
    1 BOLT was stuck in the joint itself and it was the frame side...
    I don't have pics of on the truck but what I ended up doing is cutting the head side in an x and chisel the head pieces off and sawsall the other side and pried both sides back to release the link:
    Then I was able to get the joint apart and tried to get the bolt out by heating it, well I ruined the joint in the process:








    Well, I figured at least one would need to be rebuilt, which turned out was going to be a little harder then I thought since Rubicon Express has gone out of business, but I did find a replacement so I thought before I set in my order to see how many I would need since the kits are about $35 a pop...

    Well of course, trying to get the rest apart proved to be futile....
    The little allen lock bolt was the first hurdle to get out, I tried drilling on out and well I will probably have to retap and find a different size allen bolt to put in. I stopped at just on since the other two on the other link were too frozen.
    Then I tired to get the lock nut off and its not even budging, even with a little heat, I will be trying more heat later since I have already ruined the harden plastic races on that joint, but if this seems to be the case for all 4 joints, I might consider making new ones....

  10. #30
    not bad for that kind of miles on them! if your shocks are any indication you'll have them all cleaned up for another 100k miles

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