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Couldn't find a skid plate for my 87 4 runner, so I built one
With the body lift I wasn't sure a stock OEM would fit anyway so I wasn't going to buy one and have it shipped to me. Since I couldn't find one local I decided to take a crack at it on my own.
Old bed frame and some aluminum diamond plate.
The bottom picture shows my mr2 intercooler mounted to the skid plate. Not any room for a fmic with a winch on the bumper and ac condenser behind the grill.
These are pre paint pics but you get the idea.
TIP: Aluminum will foul your sawzaw blades up quickly if you don't use plenty of spray lube while cutting.
Last edited by PickleRick81; 10-25-2022 at 04:19 AM.
The shipping through eBay would be killer but yes there were a few at that time for the 200 to 250 dollar range plus shipping.
Ive seen a few come across craiglist once in a while since I completed mine for as low as 50 bucks or so but they are few and far between. Seems most we're removed to make wrenching easier and then scrapped because they were just collecting dust.
I needed one for the sole purpose of mounting my intercooler.
I originally wanted to move the radiator back in order to put a fmic between the radiator and ac condenser.
That caused 2 issues
A. Every timing belt change (every 60k) I have to pull a radiator to do the repair. Right now I just remove one intercooler charge pipe and upper radiator hose. I turn wrenches for a living, I want simplicity and ease of maintenance on my personal vehicles which I incorporate ease of access into all my build designs.
B. The ac condenser will not draw enough air at idle with the added space the intercooler added to the front end. I'm in the south east. It was 7 degrees last week. It was 70 degrees yesterday. I had ice on my palm trees. It will be in the 90s by early June. Having cold AC at idle is a necessity for over half the year. On a newer rig this might not be an issue but I'm running r134 on a r12 system so efficiency is already not in my favor granted my VW Passat compressor is better suites for the task than the original 22re compressor would have been but the rest of the system is still undersized for r134a
10-25-2022, 04:17 AM
