habanero

96 4Runner 333,733 miles

Oil change, new air filter.

Checked the transmission and transfer case fluid levels. Transmission was good, the taco box was missing a little, the oe transfer case was over-full.
The transfer case is still robbing oil from the taco box despite replacing the transfer case input seal last year as suggested by Marlin Crawler.
At least it's a manageable amount, I checked the taco box 3 times while we were out and about, minimal was missing each time, more was added to compensate.
I knew the rear case was overfull because the fluid had to be going somewhere and it wasn't on the skid.

I use a Slippery Pete fluid pump to add oil and kept it and my extra fluids in the bag that I attached to the spare tire. Using the shoulder harness and a bungee works pretty well, it's not made for a tire.
Since we live at around 700 ft above sea level I didn't use full containers, there's some room for expansion to try to avoid leakage. It worked pretty well this year.
The bag, nothing special, but it's been durable (even when the bear yanked it part way off a few years back). Got it from one of those military stuff stores, a Czech M85 rubberized vinyl backpack, for around $12 or so around 2007ish.

This pic is courtesy Jomoka and in Thompson canyon, heading towards Onion creek.

Adding room for expansion goes for the bike tires too, we lower tire pressure before we hit higher elevations. Learned the hard way...those things go off like a shot!

habanero

96 4Runner 333,733 miles

Junkyard run to replace the dome light with the melted actuator. The switch is a plastic lever with a small ball and spring for the contact. All I can figure is it got switched to allllmost off and that caused the issue? Not enough to light the bulb that I could see, but not entirely off, either? I don't usually use the dome light unless I'm trying to find something that would benefit from dome light intrusion.

Comparison of my melted switch vs the one that's not. They're both a ball and spring combo.


So I looked up the part number- Toyota 81240-12060, then looked at the fitment guide to see what other vehicles I can find these in because it's hard to find 3rd gens in the yard and even harder to find any version of grey interiors in them.
One of the choices is a Scion Xb 04-06 and one of the yards had 2 of them. The Xb is a lot easier to find in a grey (ended up with moon mist) and that's what I pulled. Perfect fit.
My blue grey on the left, the xb's moon mist on the right. Either color works with my headliner.


Now I have a dome light to rarely use again and it'll be easier to see than before because I added a brighter warm white led bulb.
Of course I'll be more careful to make sure it gets switched ALL the way off from now on.

habanero

96 4Runner 333,733 miles

My cluster bulbs have dimmed to the point of not being able to see the cluster even on the brightest setting. Instead of being normal and just replacing the bulbs with more 194s (there are 4 in the 96's cluster) I decided to try leds.
I started out with bulbs from Diode Dynamics, where I also bought the dome light bulbs. While dimmable they were also just one diode at the top, which caused terrible hot spots so I returned them.
Superbright LEDs is not far from DD, and they have smd leds. Also dimmable, but more leds on the bulb means better distribution of light. I chose blue.
Unfortunately the blue made it too hard to see the pretty red needles, so I had to pull those off, remove the red, and color them something lighter. I used a light blue similar to the azure blue, the daytime pic vaguely shows the colors.


Now I'm trying to figure out why the head unit microphone isn't working, and I also need to fix or replace the air chuck that's on the rear bumper because the valve in it isn't closing when it's supposed to, it can't build pressure unless hooked up to something.

habanero

96 4Runner 333,733 miles

When I use the mic on my Pioneer DEH-S4220BT people can only hear electronic gibberish. the mic cord was a little broken so I replaced it, same gibberish.
Decided to look on the Pioneer website to see if they had any updates for my 2020 radio, they had a firmware update. Followed the directions and ta-da! it seems to work fine now.

Though not as bad as yesterday it's hot out, I still need to figure out what's wrong with the air chuck but am not spending a lot of time out there. It'll be nice when the shade from the oaks finally reach the driveway and it starts cooling down some.

Jomoka

Here's a video of the crawl box/doubler on the '99 making something exciting (Hell's Gate!) look boring:

The doubler has been a game changer in doing harder trails, especially with a manual transmission. It just creeps on up (and down) big stuff with no stress, no clutch slipping, no engine lugging. Which is great, unless you're watching it unfold slowly in a video, lol.

coopster

Really. Not that big a deal. (j/k)
What sux with vids is viewer doesn't get real perspective of gradient. How steep is that?
So the truck was not straining, but was the driver? I'd bet I'd be leaning over into the steering wheel so I would not fall backwards.
Srsly, I have seen vids from outside a vehicle, and it looks pretty intimidating to me.

Good job.

habanero

Thanks!

Neither of our trucks had trouble walking up, we worked on keeping the hood pretty level. There's one spot where the right front wheel comes up a bit, but settles back down as you drive forward. At least, if you've got the tires in the right place.
This seems to be the biggest trouble maker via the videos.
As the hubby said, the doublers make a big difference with the manual transmission.
I think we both picked a gear and went. I was in 1st (transmission), high (oe t/c), and low (taco box t/c), plus my rear locker on.
Note: it was dry, no puddles to deal with or lessen traction.
I had to look up how steep, 20-30 degrees for the most part, with a couple of spots at 45 degrees, such as the one the right front came up on both our trucks.

My video is from the dash cam at the top of the windshield.From my perspective, being taller but having a very short body, it was mostly sky that I was seeing.
I used the tire marks and, when going up, the top 3rd of my spotter which was all I could see of him (thank you dear) as a guide!


The entrance was a little alarming at the top, I asked for a spot based on that. The truck slipped a tiny bit up there, the rest wasn't too exciting, just steep. I was falling forward but for the seat belt.
Even at the lowest setting when it deathgrips me the seatbelt sits at my collarbone and the base of my neck, I really need to get that sorted.

habanero

96 4Runner 333,735 miles (I went grocery shopping!)

Addressing the leaking Milton V-style coupler for the OBA.
Near the end of the trip the coupler stopped sealing when not in use. It wasn't a big problem, just had to hook up my tool of choice before I turned on the compressor, and once I was done and removed the tool the air leaked out. IF I had needed my front air locker I would have stuck the blow gun on the coupler to hold the air in. Where I've got the coupler mounted to the bumper it would have fit in front of the hatch and been protected by the bumper itself.

So, I took it apart because that's how I roll...
There's probably a better way to grip the edge of the coupler, the vise grip chewed it up a little.


When you get it apart do not pull the outer barrel off, there are 6 tiny balls in there just waiting for freedom. I knew about them and had a controlled workspace so they couldn't escape.

I had two problems, the o-rings are both a bit misshapen and
the small o-ring that fits in the groove below the pointy end of the seal was on the long part. No wonder it wasn't sealing well, with the o-ring flopping about there.


I flipped the o-rings and put the thing back together for now and get a new one
I enjoyed messing with it.

habanero

96 4Runner 337, miles

My little convex mirror that I stuck on the driver's side mirror when I bought it flew off about 2 miles from home as we began our out west trip. Stuck one back on yesterday.
I also took off the cap and put the resonator back on the muffler. The Walker Overland system is not very quieter, but it has piped down a bit from initial install. I like the slightly deeper tone of the resonator vs the cap.

Some more pics courtesy Jomoka...
one day we started from near Silverton, headed over
Ophir pass


which took us close to Telluride, where we started up
Imogene pass


over to Ouray, up the 550 a little to
Mineral creek
where we followed this cool truck for a bit
and passed a jeep asking for a belly rub.

I'll bet that driver was thankful for the trees!


There's a blob of rock, maybe a couple feet high at that spot. If you hug the wall our little 4Runners can drive on top of it, but anything wider would have trouble staying off the tilty drop-off side.
It looks like the Jeep might've fallen off it on the way down, putting them off camber enough to roll on over. May have been a little too much speed involved? It's a lot steeper than it looks.
Oof, those trees don't look comfortable...


And finally over Cinnamon pass. We camped at a little FS campground closer to Lake City.
It was a long and beautiful day of driving.