Hey all.

The few of you who know me know I'm a journalist. I do lots of automotive coverage, with new vehicles, product and track testing, and off-road buildups and trail time. I'm responsible for the "why-not" coverage of a Rav4 in the dirt on Off-Road.com last year. Now I'm building a third-generation 4Runner (1997) for trail on Off-Road.com and in 4 Wheel Drive Toyota Owners magazine.

I just finished a story on the Tundra-based big brake swap for the 4Runner on Off-Road.com, and 4WDTO will be running more in-depth coverage of the same in the next issue. With all the info available on this swap, it was hard to pare it down to story length - I hope I was able to include enough core bits of the job to make it approachable. A Tundra-based lift will be coming shortly thereafter.

http://www.off-road.com/trucks4x4/ar...95244&pageID=1

I can beg and thank you all for your support and your visits (Off-Road.com is the biggest off-road site in the world, but YotaTech might be one of the most fervent), and I'd also like your opinions and suggestions. If you can take a peek and offer comment, and send me the same through YotaTech, I'd really appreciate it. The interest of the Toyota enthusiast universe is a great compliment.

STICK

 

Good writeup. Overall well written article. Just some additional info for you... The stock 16" steel wheels (2002 4Runner) fit over the 231mm Tundra calipers with no grinding of the wheels required. However, the stock spare steel wheel that came on my truck has no chance of fitting without rubbing, and no grinding of the wheel is possible to make it fit. If I get a flat up front, I have to move a rear tire up front, and put the spare on the back.

 

Hah, ain't that a pain? I had to do musical wheels on my Mustang when I ran over a big piece of steel (LA freeways are a freakin' obstacle course of used car parts). The spare wouldn't fit over big Baer brakes so I had to swap front to back and spare to rear and jacks all over the place. What a nuisance.

I'm going to find another 16" wheel to use as an straight-swap spare on the 4Runner.

Your insight is welcome knowledge - I did not know about the later-edition 4Runner 16"s (one more indication that Toyota was already thinking about bigger brakes...). Did you take credit for the info in the story comments at the end?

STICK

 

Kool right up Justin, I like it.
If I had 16" wheels, And a little more time then 3 days to get my brakes done before this weekend, I would have considered this swap..

Glad to see the 4Runner coming along.

 

cool, i actually read this.. not knowing your on YT. lol

 

I thought most people ground down the caliper, not the wheel. I was going to do this but I'm not to hip to grinding on the wheel. Or can it be done either way?

 

Some of the spots on the caliper are not very thick. Although some people have ground a bit off the calipers, that's not the way I would do it.

 

If I remember right from another thread you said you didn't have to grind anything. Man I wish I knew if my wheels had the same dimensions as yours. Same year, same diameter wheels but different design. My spokes are the more rounded style. I guess when it's time for brakes I'll find out then. Are the 230mm that much better than the 199mm?

 

That's right, Mr. Ed.

The split-three spoke 16" is a big thick piece of cast aluminum - there is a TON of extra material you can grind off with no affect on the structural integrity of the wheel. In fact, some rules of metallurgy would suggest that taking off the high point where I did actually strengthens the spoke, but I can't explain how.

GS is right about the caliper - everyone I spoke to and a bunch of comments on YotaTech agreed that the ridge on the back of the caliper is probably a fluid duct. I sure as Hell don't need to be breaking through into the balance vein between two of the pistons. Chop a little material out of the wheel and just get it rebalanced.

I'm actually experimenting with a new semi-truck dynamic tire balancing fluid called Ride-On. It seems to have calmed the wheel/tire shimmy that I induced by taking weight off, but I need to have them spin-balanced to make sure.

STICK with my plan

 

Interesting write up but very little on the "how to" of the swap. Also if you use the 199 as I did in my brake swap write up, I only had to file off a very little amount of the inner dust shield, no removal of any metal at the ends and did not have to grind ANY metal from my wheels, that is not a good idea no matter how you describe it. Removing metal from a wheel will put it out of balance faster then you can change a magazine subscription.

I have a 98 4runner with STOCK Toyota alloys and did not have to do a thing. As for interference with a stock steel wheel, easy enough to solve that too, find another stock 16" alloy wheel with tire at a wrecking yard, I got one with a literally brand new tire for les then $80 and it was already balanced. Swapped it out with the OEM spare and no worries. I did a complete swap of a 2001 Tundra brakes including turning the rotors, dressing the pads from the Tundra, cost of the calipers and rotors for less then $85. Here is the complete write up I did on my truck. https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/0...runner-146160/

I would encourage anyone considering this swap to give it a read. You can still get 199mm calipers, either from a wrecking yard or rebuilt from many auto parts stores. the stopping power is definitely noticable and well worth doing. Questions? I will gladly respond

 

Hah, that's the whole point - there is very little "how-to". The Tundra brake swap is so simple every 4Runner should have it. Your write-up highlights that. I did it the hard way because I know I'm not the only guy out there who will want to go big, and do it without buying new wheels.

The 199mm caliper was, as per Toyota, not as good a caliper as the 231mm. Both are suitable for the 4Runner, but the 231 is better for any number of reasons, and so I hunted it down. Again, I figured the 199 Tundra-swap is even easier than the 231, so I'd tackle the tough one.

As for the wheels, well, I hate to break it to you, but taking a little metal off means you need to rebalance them. Big deal. You can take a little off at a time and be surgical about it, and keep things very close to balanced. If you're ultra-concerned, bring your grinder with you when you have the wheels balanced. Go to a cool shop that will spin them up, mark the heavy spots, and you can take a little material off at a time and do most of the balancing for them. Besides, it's at the center of the wheel where it has much less impact on rotational balancing. Don't stress it (a little wheel humor there). Meanwhile, I picked up very little vibration when I did the grinding (before I had the wheels balanced) - less than I got by installing a cheap set of spacers. It's just not a big deal.

Of course, the stories on off-road.com are usually shorter. Web edit never carries as much attention-span as print, so you have to be brief with your edit and cram it all in tight. A different story about the same install will appear in 4WDTO shortly, with more information, though possibly still not enough for you.

Thanks for reading my story, though. Tell your friends.

STICKing out

 

Umm, this may sound stupid, but how do we read the rest of the article.

I get to the pasty white ass part, (is it really necessary to use ass in a article about brakes?) anyway, there seems to be no link that i can find to the rest of the story.

 

Heyo.

Easy fix - sometimes there's a loading issue with Macs, Safari and a few other bits of software. The link for page two is here:

http://www.off-road.com/trucks4x4/ar...95244&pageID=2

You can use that to get the second page going, and enter your Page IDs from there. Sometimes the page-advance is also there but you can't see it, so roll your mouse over the bottom-left corner of the page above the ads and comments section, and you can pick up the #2 and 3 pages there too.

Hey Roundhouse, I sent you the wrong link - use this one.

STICK

 

How about the 5 star Limited wheels? Need some grinding on those too?

 

Only the split three wheels don't clear. Any 16" newer than the split three should work. I can vouch for how thin the caliper is where it needs to be ground. My dad did one and I did the other. He ground through the one he did and created a pinhole leak. Even after you grind on it there is barely any clearance. I recommend grinding the wheel.

 

TaCollie is right, from what I've found. The limited-fives fit over even the 231s. I'm looking for a set of the limited-fives myself (though steelies would be cooler - wreckage cool!). They should be A-OK. Hey X, did you go to CO4RJ?

I'd avoid grinding on the caliper at all - wheels are a lot easier to replace at the junkyard. Collie, how did you patch the pinhole? I'm betting a beer you used JB Weld. Did it work?

Here's a thought. The next time you're at a swap meet, or you're cruising Craig's List, dig up a set of 5mm spacers - el cheapo cast aluminum things. It's about $10 for a pair. Clean up the crappy castings and keep them in your truck for when a set of wheels might or might not work. With the 5mm spacers, my split-threes fit without any grinding, but, as you may recall, spacers are mean to your hubs and bearings.

Be sure to check my coverage of CO4RJ on off-road.com, please. Support my poor ass. You can also tune into my radio show on 1170AM in San Diego - The Garage Hour, 6: PM Left Coast, Saturdays. You can stream on the web at KCBQ.com.

STICK

 

I actually haven't decided what to do yet. My brother thinks he can weld them, which is probably true. Except you would have to heat up the casting to gaurantee a solid weld. I was thinking about jb weld. My dad worries both those options will fall. What do you guys think?

 

Rub grease all over the caliper and swap it out for a rebuilt one

As far as welding the only way your going to get a really good weld you can trust is to tear apart the caliper, clean it out and hit it will a TIG/Heli-Arc welder and fix the pinhole.

Wirefed/mig and Stick welding won't give a consistent enough result IMHO to be trusted with something as critical as brakes.

 

Go look at your wheels, my 2002 sr5 wheels had the spots pre ground down and fit the big ones no prob.

 

Nice write up. Good to see the little brother Toyota getting some press.
Looks like I'm SOL for the brake mod unless I give up my steelies.