All of the trails around here are still snowed in, so I wasn't able to take it wheeling without going on a full trip. I took it out on a dirt road a few miles from my house and just played around to see how it all works. I saw a snowpile that seemed perfect to test everything out. I know this is a complete poser shot, but it let me see how well everything would work. It pretty much just drove itself up. The hill is steeper than it looks and if you look at the trees, the truck is at more of an angle than it looks.









You can see here that the truck went up so slow and smooth that the front tire didn't even drop in the hole

 

Sick brah! Looks killer on 35's.

Glad you've got 4 wheel drive now. Looks like the TG HD mount uses some funky bushings??

Here's a good idea for stiffening up a stock mount if the HD mount has too much vibration.

http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=56022.0

 

Thanks! The TG HD mount uses some really funky bushings, like nothing I've really seen before. They do create a little more vibration at idle, and when stopped in gear. It's not a bunch, but I told myself that I would wait a few days before I decide to keep them or change them out. I do like the idea of the bolted mount mount though

How far out is your truck? Do you think you might be able to go wheeling in a week or two? I'd like to hit up Chinaman's and start working out some of the details soon!

 

Would you be willing to modify another transmission with a little monetary motivation?

 

Finally got my tie rod cut and tube inserts welded today. I still have to make a new bracket for the top of the diff for the hydro ram, weld some tabs on the tie rod, cut off driver's side bumpstop and bend the frame back, and redo the bumpstops. Probably 2 full days of work for slowpoke me

I might take some vaction days off of work to get the truck back to wheeling shape. I'll let you know!

 

What was your trans doing to make you think you might have problems with it?

 

PM sent

 

Every now and then when I came to a stop, in gear, the RPM's would drop, and the vehicle would shake / vibrate and then die(reverse was the worst). It seemed like the TC was not unlocking all the way and stalling the vehicle. When this happened I was able to shift into N and everything would go back to normal. After I installed the new transfer case I have not noticed any issues, I'll have to give it a while and see if it happens again.

 

very sweet. i've been eying that adapter set up for awhile now. great write up. thanks for the input.

 

how is the rear driveshaft? Did you need to have it modified in order to work properly?

 

Thanks!

I'm using the rear driveshaft out of the old green truck. With the auto transmission / Inchworm adapter / single gear driven transfer case, it's almost the same length as dual cases on a manual truck. I'm using both front and rear driveshafts out of the old truck and they work perfect.

 

I spent the last couple days, after work, getting a few details worked out. I didn't take any pictures at the time, but few afterwards.

The first issue was the switches for the tailgate and rear wiper, with the twin stick I had no place to put them. I thought about it for a while and I could only come up with one idea. It seems odd, but it worked out great. I used what was left of the center console and mounted it right under the front of the seat. It's easy to reach while driving and even easier when I'm out of the truck. You really don't even notice it, unless your looking for it.





I also got rid of those crappy rear shocks I had, and replaced them with a set of Poly Performance BBCS 13" shocks. I had to rework the rear section of the exhaust to clear the new shocks, but it was well worth the effort. The exhaust would have turned out cleaner if I would have started completly over, but it seemed alot easier to modify what I had. I can always change it later.











I also thought I would show how well the rear cargo light works, this is at night with no flash. It makes finding stuff alot easier

 

Guess what I did yesterday?


I took the truck out for the first time since starting this project! Cory and I went to Chinaman's for the first shake down run, I've ran this trail ton's of times and it's one of my favorites. I didn't take many pictures since I was getting used to the truck and was by myself.

Overall the 4Runner worked great, I'm very impressed with how well it works! It went everywhere I wanted it to go, and alot of those were some pretty nasty lines . The auto transmission worked great, along with the rail shifter, I'm really surprised that more people don't run this set up.

I didn't know if the rear shocks were going to provide enough up travel but they worked great and the built in bumpstops limit the travel right where it needs to be. With the front axle so far forward I have zero rubbing on the firewall and that's with the stock plastic federwell pieces.

The only issue that I ran into was with the electric fan. When I had the driver side front tire compressed the body / motor flex allowed the engine pulley to touch the fan motor, not bad but just a little. I should be able to move the fan an inch and be fine.

 

 

At the end of the day we went to the exit of Carnage to check it out. Being the good friend I am , I talked Cory's friend Mike into dropping down Carnage in Cory's truck .











Then it was time to come back up









And Cory's sweet hood

 

:drool:


Can you give the specs on the rear driveshaft? I am having problems with my t-case/driveshaft making noise. I am trying to figure out what will fix the problem.

 

lol... that looks fun... your truck looks great, man...

and your buddy's truck looks cool too...
kinda funny that theres a 1000 dollar hood on a 3000 dollar machine... lol...

 

The rear driveshaft is out of the old green truck, it's a non-CV retubed (.120 wall) rear shaft. The green truck sat so low that it didn't need the CV and I always managed to bash the slip since it was down in the rocks.

There is a slight bit of vibration, but not much. I could drive back from Moab on it (if I had to) without a problem. I'm in the process of sending out an '85CV shaft to have it retubed for the rear of the truck and the non-CV shaft will be my spare.

What kind of issues are you having? If you could swing the money, I would say convert over to the gear drive T-case and be done with it! Most of my weird tranny / t-case issues have gone away or have been minimized since the install. I'm also really happy with the single 4.7 case, I thought it might be too low for most trails but it's not. Dual cases would be nice for hardcore snowbashing and playing baja driver but the added length (manual triple t-case numbers) isn't worth the effort. In a manual, dual cases are nice because you can split gear ratio's and have the right amount wheel speed, torque, and engine RPM. With the auto in a specific gear, it feels like there is a grey area and depending on your situation all of the above elements vary.

 

Thanks

You would be surprised how well Cory's truck works (I'm sure it's also driving skill ), it's just plain stupid how well it works . Everything is top of the line stuff where it counts, it just doesn't look like it from a distance.

One of his buddys painted the hood for him. I told him that he should have some crazy Aztec god on top of a temple, holding up a woman with one of her breasts popping out under a giant sun that is the Toyota logo; throw in a couple Jeeps getting sacrificed, along with some other crazy Waldo stuff and you have the coolest hood EVER!

 

x1,000,000