Yotafun 00' 4Runner Build - Annabelle (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Nov 21, 2007
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Location
Dover, DE
I have prolonged long enough it is time to start a build thread.

My 97' 4Runner has a blow head gasket (which I could have fixed) and a rusted to dust body (it rained inside when it rained outside). It was just time.

I picked up a 2000 4Runner Limited off the wholesale lot at work. It was just shy of 190k, and over all very clean with just a little rust spot on the front of the left rear wheel well. The more desirable of the 3rd gen models with the Multi-Mode Transfer case with center diff lock and the factory rear locker. The high bolster leather seats are a nice touch as well as the fake wood Interior but still levels above my 97' SR5.

Here are some pictures of it the day I picked it up:

The plan is to continue where I wanted to go with the Anthracite 97' and end with a SAS 3rd gen on 37s.

Near Future (collecting components currently):
35s
New washer bottle (to help with 35s)
Snorkel
Crawl Box
Hidden winch behind factory front bumper
 
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When I first picked up this 4Runner the spare tire was on the left rear of the truck and this is what I found still holding air back in the spare tire area:

That is why you see a set of painted limited rims on the first pictures.
My guess is previous owner lost it in the snow and curbed it pretty good.
 
A week after purchase we were on our way to the pet store to get some food and a Honda thought it would be a good idea not to yield when there was traffic:

I didn't file a insurance claim and get a cool rear bumper, the woman that hit me was loose a few screws and I had other things going on in my life to spend time trying to argue with her insurance company.
 
Then a few months later, we bought a house, and I decided to install some new wheels (that I had lying around) and due a full service timing belt, water pump, drive belts, valve cover gaskets, and cooling system flush:

No real photos of the process but a nice one of my messy garage with stuff moved around just to fit the truck in.
 
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The next thing to freshen up the steering, the 3rd gens are notorious for lower ball joint failure and with 200k knocking on the door of the ODO I felt it was time for it.
I went with Tacoma lower ball joints and outer tie rod ends.
The lower ball joints are slightly different in design and bring the angle of the tie rod ends up a bit that help when the vehicle is lifted (which hadn't even been a thought yet).
I also did inner tie rod ends, steering rack bushings and put new bushings in some Tacoma lower control arms I had to finish off the front end suspension refresh:

Edit: I did find a picture of at least one of the steering rack bushings:
 
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rusted to dust body (it rained inside when it rained outside)

Funny, when I was 19 or so, I picked up a '67 Jeepster Commando. Shortly thereafter, I was driving it and ran into a thunderstorm. It looked like a waterfall pouring down from under the dash. Turned out the windshield frame had a little rot (ok, a lot) :lol:
 
Next on the saga of this truck was an A/c issue, it wasn't as cold as the first summer I bought it so I did a overhaul of the entire system:

Most of these pictures are me looking for a sign of what was causing a full system to not cool, either clogged evaporator core or expansions valve or any of the sensors in the system.
I replaced them all and still didn't have cold air!

Insult to injury I finally figured out the issue, the winter before I 'lost' heat due to the blend door motor gear striping in the portion that it swung for a full cycle of hot to cold. To remedy this I turned the gear 180 to get heat again, however when I did this I must have been one or two teeth off the gear because that was ultimately the cause of no A/C, after manually moving the blend door I got full A/C so I moved a gear and got A/C and heat again. Inevitably I will have to get a new blend door motor with gear (couple more trips to Harry's)

Also at this time, the started finally decided to crank its last crank and turned into a fiasco on its own.
The started had definitely done its fair share of work as you can see from these pictures:

I removed this section of exhaust to try to make things a little easier, which just made things more difficult:
 
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I know this thread is mostly been about normal maintenance and fixing little things but I promise it will get to the fun stuff soon.

The next thing to tackle was the Radiator that decided to start to internally fail on the way up to our Annual Club Breakfast. Thankfully Andy had tools and was generous enough to lend his garage for me to get it fixed. A few trips to the auto parts store and it was fixed enough to get me home.

I say fixed enough because in the following weeks I noticed the transmission starting to whine when it was cold in the morning until the fluid would get warmer, and eventually doing it almost constantly and I think it was due to the new Dexron 6 fluid. While it is supposed to be backwards compatible I don't feel it is, especially since when I was pouring it out it was like water.

Well I think it cause more material to either get into the system or off the clutch packs itself. I don't have a picture but I ended up flushing the fluid again and putting Dex/Merc in and the problem was resolved and the trans feels solid.

EDIT: here is a picture of the filter when I removed it:
 
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I wonder if the Dex 6 has more/different detergents in it? Gave the trans a deep clean so to speak.
 
I wonder if the Dex 6 has more/different detergents in it? Gave the trans a deep clean so to speak.

I am curious about this as well, I ended up changing the filter too because it was so clogged that it was preventing the trans from picking up any fluid. the new filter alone with the Dex/Merc really made the trans feel stronger.
 
I started with the rear lift first since I had to order new bushings for the upper control arms that sized again in the upper shock tower even after I used 2-4-C Marine Grease....

During the upper control arm install while tightening on of the nuts, the thread stripped on the bolt and it wouldn't tighten or loosen anymore so I had to cut and replace it with the one I took off the anthracite 4Runner:
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Then the lower control arms in the rear were next (These will be coming off soon to get cleaned up and painted to match the rest of the theme of the suspension):
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Then I moved over the extended brake line:
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Then in the process I also wanted to freshen up the rear brakes partially because I had an axle seal go bad):
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Rear Lift Coils and Shocks:
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E-brake Relocation Bracket:
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Rear lift all done:
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The scrap from the 00' 4Runner, I do not run a rear sway bar, that is how I get that fantastic flex you all see when we are on the trails:
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Hot rod 4Runner, also with the set of wheels that will get 35s eventually:
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Next was the front suspension. What a nightmare, the front was rusted worse this time around then when I had done my frame swap years ago. Now I have it as an every 1k or 1 mo. what ever comes first to loosen and re torque and grease everything so it doesn't seize on the 00' 4Runner.

I did this in two stages, I just installed the front coilovers first just to make it ready enough to go on the trails the coming weekend.

Disassembly and reassembly:
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Lifted, Locked, Ready to Rock:
 
Stage Two of the front end rebuild

Front Control Arm Refresh (which I need to remove and repaint again...):

After the first trip on the trails even with my front diff drop, I busted some cv boots (which looked questionable after the lift anyway):

Also during this time I build myself some stub cv axle shafts, I have found the 4.30 gear ratio front diff to not be the most robust when it comes to spinning the front like an idiot (@jamarquardt22 knows all about this from our Ohio trip). so till I can get my manual ABS hub spindles set up I have these if I destroy another front diff:

I also installed some rear extended bump stop mounts:
 
I still wanted to be able to drive this thing on the road comfortably in the event of a snow storm (since I really didn't like our little Matrix as far a size). I had picked up a set of Sequoia/Tundra 17" wheels that were in rough shape, had them powder coated and wrapped in a mild A/T Tire:
 
The most recent little thing that I notice about a month ago was the rear end felt a little twitchy.
I started shaking things down and found that the rear track bar where it attaches to the axle had some play:

The problem is I have one of the first designs of that panhard bar from Sonoran Steel. He has replacement bushings for his new design trac bar on the site but not the lower. I have been meaning to call but haven't had a chance, so I looked around the garage to see what I might be able to use, since I tend to throw nothing away without throw a fit I found some rear lower shock bushings that I sanded down to make work for the time being:
 

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