Project: Everything swap 88' 4runner

12/15/09

started the actual build

I traded my old truck (see first pic) for two 88' 4runners. One is a good rolling chassis and straight body (see second pic). The other is basically a parts truck with a lot of good parts and some shady fab work. In the next few months I'll be swapping everything over to the straight bodied truck and doing all the fab stuff myself.

Specs:
22re, W56
High pinion 5.29 detroit locked front axle with 30 spline longs, high steer, IFS calipers
5.29 welded rear
dual cases with 4.7's in the rear case
Marlin 4" springs in the front
Marlin 5" springs in the rear
Bilstien 5125 14" travel shocks all the way around
37" MTRs on 15X8 steelies


Old truck




New 4runner



Parts truck. Took it wheeling on Fordyce the second weekend I owned it in November. The hideous front bumper will not be going on the new truck.

https://2img.net/h/i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad335/highsierracrawler/88%20Runner%20Build/DSC037951.jpg

https://2img.net/h/i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad335/highsierracrawler/88%20Runner%20Build/fordyce1.jpg


12/23/09
Some Build pics














Tube doors I kept off my old truck. They will need to modified to fit the new junk.




A little progress. 1/02/10

Painted truck, cleaned and painted engine compartment, put front fenders, grille and headlights on. Starting to look like a truck now. I will start the demo of the parts truck this week.










1/12/10

Pulled the parts truck in the garage and stripped it of anything worth using. Found a tow company to haul off the carcass for the scrap metal. Way better than cutting it up and having to haul it away myself. Plus, they did it for free.




1/19/10

Got a lot done over the weekend.

Welded on rear leaf spring mounts and shackle mounts. Removed gas tank to fully weld leaf spring hangers on all sides.

Installed MC 5” rear springs.

Removed 1 leaf out of the front MC 4” springs, hopefully lowers the front and gets rid of the reverse rake.

Got both axles installed and wheels on to get an idea of what this thing will look like. Still very tall in front, hopefully lowers a bunch when engine, trans, and t-cases are installed.

Got entire wiring harness swapped over and installed.

All hvac stuff, steering column and dash installed. Plus, a lot of the interior put together.

Should be a runner after another weekend of work.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic.






1/31/10

Snow wheeling/camping pics. 4runner wasn't quite done yet, so I took my 97' Tacoma daily driver. It did really well for being reletively stock.

















2/21/2010

Been busy the last couple weeks. Installed engine, trans, t-case and finished the rest of the interior. Finished painting body and painted SR5 grahics on the hood. Painted hard top and mounted up some new wheels. Started my rear bumper so I'd have something to pull from while out snow wheeling.

Drove it from Sac. to the Highlakes for some snow wheeling today. My new used transmission has no 5th gear but that's being taken care of. Besides that the truck did awesome, aside from some minor tire rubbing issues.

Not sure why a bunch of pics are cut off. DOH!

Nice... That was a quicky...

I saw you at Uncle Tom's. I knew I'd find out who was there

its looking great man

Thanks for the compliments fellas. I have a ton to due before it's ready for the rocks. Should start getting interesting.

looks good man

Damn fast bro!! Looks great.

snowshoebrue wrote:looks good man

Thank you

ghettowheeler wrote:Damn fast bro!! Looks great.

Yeah, I hate having my small garage being tied up with a immovable vehicle. Now that I can atleast drive it, all the other stuff including cage, rear bumper, stereo, tube doors, rock sliders and other finishing touches will be accomplished over the next few months in between motocross, family and other household chores. I'm a little burnt out on wrenching right now. I'm just glad I don't do it for a living anymore. I'll be back in the game in a week or two. Just not the everynight til 11:00 type thing.

1tuffmuff wrote:Not sure why a bunch of pics are cut off. DOH!

You have to save the pics as a smaller size due to the forum settings. Save them to 50 to 75 % of the original size and you will see all of it.

Updates:

I trimmed the rear wheel opening 3 inches and rolled the cut fender lip with a hammer and body dolly. Then, enclosed the opening with sheetmetal patch panels to gain some strength and keep the elements out of the passenger compartment.




Also, Got a free factory roll bar from Rocko, and mounted some wakeboard tower speakers to it. Sounds bad-ass. I’ll try and get some pics of that tonight.

Went to Fordyce a couple weekends back, the truck did awesome. No issues except, for still having some minor tire rubbing in the front. I think re-drilling the spring perches will solve that.







The rest can be seen here. That damn bronco is always a picture hog.
https://s949.photobucket.com/albums/ad335/highsierracrawler/Fordyce%20Snowtrip%20March%202010/?start=all


In the next couple weeks, I’m going to finish the rear bumper, add a tire carrier to it and add some sort of quarter panel protection

Did some bumper building on Sunday. Pretty happy with how it's coming together. Used a 1" Grade 10 bolt and a piece of 1" schedule 40 for the hinge (only 1 inch ID tubing I could find) should work fine though. It has a nice tight fit and I plan on drilling it for a zerk fitting. Basically did all the fitting and mock up today. Hopefully start lighting myself on fire today after work. Also pretty pumped about the stainless steel brushing. Just used a 80 grit flap disk, (got idea from Snowshoebrue's buggy skins) came out pretty cool, I think. Yes, the reciever will be recessed into the 2x4 flush, once the welding begins. After that I will paint the whole thing black, but mask the rear facing section of the stainless to leave some bling.

looks good bro

Doin work lately. Finished up rear bumper with spare tire carrier.

Mounted up sliders cut off old 4runner.






Scored a set of SR5 seats, inclometer SR5 gauge cluster and cobra 25 classic CB. Made mount for iphone/pod. Still need to find some gray door panels.

Niiiiice!

I saw a rig at Hollister with backwards sliders... that was... interesting to say the least lol.

nice runna you got there..

Wheeled the piss outta this thing over the 4th of July weekend. We wheeled 4 trails in 4 days. Slickrock on Friday, Deer Valley on Saturday, Strawberry on Sunday morning/afternoon and the Rubicon on Sunday night into Monday. The runner did awesome with no issues besides aquireing a leak in the rear third member. Even made a sucessful run up Soup Bowl. Also, re-worked the tube doors from my old X-cab to fit the runner and bought a bikini top off a buddy before the trip.

Didn't get very many action shots, due to only having my dog as a passanger


Deer Valley

Strawberry


Rubicon

Hey that bikini top looks great! And wow you really didn't mess around last weekend did you!

Hit up Fordyce a few weeks ago. 4runner did great with no issues what so ever. I think a 3.4 swap will be happening this winter. The 22re just isn't cutting it on the passes going up hwy 80 to Fordyce. Here are a few pics.

more

Added some thirdmember bling. Upgraded the studs to 10mm button head allen bolts (got tired of the constant leaking after every trip from the studs stretching and loosening up). Also added marlins triple drilled diff flange. Could'nt go wrong for $10 when they were on sale. I bought 4 of em for all my diff abd t-case flanges. I'm gonna build some spare driveshafts and all the bolt patterns are mix and matched. No worries now.


Also wanted to share some pics of my new three car garage. So nice having the room for all my junk and still having to work on my crawler. I now also have a 20 foot wide by 80 foot RV access along side the garage. Just bought a car trailer recently and have plenty of room for it now. I will still be driving the rig to trail for the most part until I can afford to buy a 3/4 or 1 ton truck. The wifes Yukon isn't an ideal tow vehicle.

look at all that floor space! you basturd! lol looking good.