BlueCruiser84
SILVER Star
Holler at me when the 3.4 is in and sorted out. I’ll fly out and drive it home! 
Builds 1990 4Runner Build/Rescue (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter yotadude520
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- 4runner
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Just found this thread.
Will be using as motivation, ha.
Will be using as motivation, ha.
- Thread starter
- #63
Holler at me when the 3.4 is in and sorted out. I’ll fly out and drive it home!
I'll call ya once theres a 3RZ in the 1980
Great looking rig you got there! One thing to check on the brakes with the 2nd gen 4Runners is the adjustment of the rear drum brakes. The brake shoes have a mechanism that auto adjusts the clearance with respect to the drum. I have found that to get that adjustment mechanism to do its thing, you have to get the vehicle rolling in reverse and then pull the parking brake. Repeat this process several times and see if you get an improvement in braking. Another item to look out for with 2nd gen 4Runner brakes that are not working well, is oiled down rear brake drums. If one of the rear axle bearings goes out it, it will oil down the brake drum and shoes. Rear axle bearings failures are a pretty common in these trucks from my experience. Best of luck
- Thread starter
- #65
Thank you for the knowledge! We haven't tried the parking brake trick, but we did have the drums and shoes out when we replaced the wheel cylinders. Everything looked good while we were in there.
We'll try the parking brake trick and see what happens!
- Thread starter
- #66
Things are happening...
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
Get it all buttoned up?
- Thread starter
- #68
Not yet, waiting on the harness from Off Road Solutions to be made. Have bought just about everything else to do the swap. Originally ordered the harness from Toy Only Swaps but unfortunately they are not making harnesses at this time so kind of put a damper on things.
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
Awesome. I saw a kid going by in a worn out 2nd gen yesterday, made me sad I sold mine but it is what it is. I still think theyre the best looking 4Runner.
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
Well looks like you've given all your love to the 3rd gen, no 2nd gen updates.
Seen a few 2nd gens in the past week, still missing mine even though it never ran
Seen a few 2nd gens in the past week, still missing mine even though it never ran
- Thread starter
- #71
Been giving the 3rd gen a TON of love but the 2nd gen is moving along!
We've pretty much got everything to do the 3.4 swap now. We're going to do a timing belt, valve cover gaskets & head gaskets (maybe) on the donor engine before slapping it in.
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
Im the last 3 posts in the past 6 months. Think I forgot about this?
have you sold this for scrap yet
- Thread starter
- #73
Im the last 3 posts in the past 6 months. Think I forgot about this?
have you sold this for scrap yet
Lol you're persistence is a great motivator for me! We've both been busy, he just welcomed a son so yeah it's been on the back burner again.
One day I swear....
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
Here I am, once again
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
- Thread starter
- #75
Thanks for the check in! We have made some progress on this one even though I haven't updated in a while. We did pull out the 3.0 and got the engine bay cleaned up with the stuff we won't need.
We've also been prepping the new 3.4 and been resealing it to get it ready to go in. We pulled the wiring harness and went to install the new one we had purchased but it was incompatible with our ECU so we had to get another wiring harness from a junkyard.
I've been traveling a lot for work and just finished a LS swap in my 60 but am ready to get this thing done before the summer. At least that's the goal!!
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
You've taken so long just swithc the engine to an LS 6.0 to this also
What a Legend lol. 3 years later and you remembered this. Now he has got to finish this build
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
yeah maybe after I remind him in another three years.What a Legend lol. 3 years later and you remembered this. Now he has got to finish this build
note to self and to @yotadude520 for me to check in in 2028
- Thread starter
- #79
I swear you're worse than the 10 alarms I set in the morning....jk, it's incredibly motivating and I appreciate it!
We've made some pretty serious progress as we finally got back to this thing a few weekends ago. I have mixed feelings about the donor motor we're using in this build. It was bought off of craigslist in the parking lot of a taqueria on the south side of town. We were told it was out of a 1999 4Runner that was a 2WD and had 170k miles. As we've been going along the swap, I noticed that it already has the 2WD T100 pan that you need for the swap (which is a solid score) but it begs the question to how honest the seller was. We did inspect the main bearings when we had the pan off and it looked good, but we won't know until we turn the key.
Unfortunately our $700 taqueria special had no accessories or brackets, and the wiring harness was chopped at the ECU. We've been piecing together more parts and finally tracked down a donor to get all of the accessories off of. Here's my brother picking said donor in a cool, 110 degree day here in Tucson.
We also got the ORS Crossover finally, really nice piece that we had been waiting on for a while.
With the new accessories, flywheel and clutch installed it was ready to get this thing into it's permanent home.
Unfortunately since this truck is so damn tall, the cherry picker doesn't get the engine high enough to get it in the engine bay. So we threw it in the back of my buddy's bronco and drove it over to his giant A-frame to get it installed. It was absolutely insane seeing this engine floating so high in the air!
Nevertheless with the height we needed we were able to prep the final install.
It was a little bit of a PITA, but the engine is finally installed. I Forgot to take some more pics after this but we're atleast getting somewhere on this thing. Still have quite a bit to do but hoping we can get it running before the end of the year...
