My Mall Runner

Yellowjacket Trail

This site last updated sometime in 2002

The truck: 1985 4Runner SR5

So I haven't maintained this page very well recently. Oh well, life got in the way, and I lost interest in writing html. But here's the current story:

Summer 2001: Finally installed a wider rear axle from an 86 toyota after rebuilding the brakes, putting new wheel bearings in, and giving myself a sore back. I scored the axle for about $100 and probably dumped another $100 into the rebuild parts. At this time I also swapped my 3rd members front to rear to put some miles on the rarely-used front 3rd member.

Later summer 2001: found a Dana 44 from a 1/2 ton chevy for $150. I took this in to work, cut it down to 60" wide, replaced all the bearings/balljoints/seals etc. Milled the spring perch on the housing to tilt the pinion up 7.5 degrees and cut and turned the knuckles (while I had them off to narrow the housing). I did all this work myself, and it shows, since it looks like crap.

September 2001: Went home prior to starting grad school and spent a week installing the D44 under my truck. This involved a dropped front spring hanger that also outboarded the springs 1.5" per side (31.5" spring center to center). The drop built into the hanger is about 1.5", the minimum I could get away with to keep the pinion angle useable. The shackles had to be outboarded as well, so they went into new hangers mounted under the frame, using stock rear shackles. The front spring hanger moved the mounting point forward 1" and netted a shackle angle around 45 degrees.

The springs consist of the top 2 leaves from my stock rear springs, which move the axle mounting point forward 2" compared to stock. The rest of the pack is the remains of my Alcan springs and 1 extra rear leaf that may be tossed later. All this combined would have moved the axle forward 3" from stock, but I had to redrill the spring perches back 3/4" due to steering clearances.

The steering is all above the springs using steering arms from an aftermarket vendor. These arms are sub-optimal for this application, but the truck does drive safely. I'm working on changing this setup with some homemade arms.

Xmas break 2001: I finally get some time off. On go the 35" Goodyear MT/R's and MRT beadlocks. I regeared the rear diff to 5.29 to deal with the bigger tires, and I regeared the front diff to 5.38 (1.67% difference is close enough for me). The front driveshaft is finally ordered, so this thing might have functional 4wd by early 2002. We'll see.

I also started repainting the truck white panel by panel. So far the hood and roof are done, and the hood already needs to be redone. The painting has been on hold since the other students get uptight when you start spray painting next to their BMW's.

Everything below this point is old and not necessarily relevant any more. But I'll leave it since I spent so much damned time writing it to begin with.

Modified Stuff

Suspension Page

Low profile crossmember

Interior stuff

Gas Tank Skidplate

Lockers

I'm running Lock-Right lockers in both ends currently. The rear locker was installed over 50,000 miles ago and is still working fine. When I installed the front locker I put together a step by step write-up. You can access it here: Lock-Right install article

Marlin Crawler low range gear set

4.70:1 low range gear for the transfer case. This replaces the stock low range gear set in the 4cyl model transfer case. It's not a dual case setup, though I'd like to install such a setup in the future to further lower the low range crawl ratio. The Marlin Crawler has really made things much more enjoyable. Things happen at a slower pace, and often if I get stopped, the tires slip before the engine dies. Marlin's web page.

Marlink

(This is no longer relevant) The stock toyota tie rod was replaced by one of Marlin's heavy duty Marlinks. It's quite a hefty piece of chromoly tubing, about 1.3" in diameter, and uses FJ-80 ball joints, which are significanlty larger than the stock mini truck ball joints. The Marlink requires the use of a clamp-on mount for the steering stabilizer, so I made one and mounted up an eighteen year old HECO stabilizer we found in the deep dark depths of the garage. I actually managed to bend the Marlink a bit, mainly due to a skillful lapse of concentration. It was easily returned to straight using a hydraulic pull-back ram once I returned home.
Marlink

Engine:

Not much to say, stock 22RE, 190,000+ miles, replaced timing chain at 120,000 miles, burns a quart of oil every 1-2 tanks of gas, and otherwise runs just fine. The obligatory K&N resides in the airbox. Still passes smog tests with flying colors (after it gets a new cat).

Exhaust:

The tubing and muffler behind the cat have been replaced with 2 inch tubing and some sort of Dynomax muffler (don't know/don't care). The tail pipe now exits between the frame and the leaf spring behind the rear wheel, similar to Toy pickups. The plastic trim pieces that previously covered this space have been permanently removed.

Body Lift

To solve the rubbing problems I was having with my 32x11.50's, I added a 1 inch body lift. I purchased a generic 3 inch kit, and cut it down to 1 inch blocks and 2 inch blocks. We ended up cutting down the 2 inch blocks to make more 1 inch blocks to use on my dad's 95 4Runner, so the kit was a decent value. The lift was installed in a few hours after purchasing new bolts of the right length and size. The only modification I had to do was to remove the lower removable lip of the radiator shroud to get a little fan clearance, just in case. I left the bumpers alone, since I really don't care that there's a small gap. In the rear, you can't even tell. When I build some new bumpers, I'll take the lift into acount. This body lift solved a lot of problems all at once. First off, the tires stopped rubbing in the front. Second, it gave me room to build some nerf bars that extended straight out from the frame, instead of having to dip down to clear the rocker panels. And in the rear, there was now enough room to fit the longer shocks I wanted without having to lay them over even further. All in all, the body lift was really useful.

Nerf Bars/Side Steps/Rock Sliders/Side Impact Beams/Hi Lift Jack Points

Since I lack oodles of lift, some sort of sturdy rocker panel protection was in order. I wasn't about to use Smittybilt nerfs, even welded to the frame. I made up some custom bars out of 1.5" square, 1/4" wall tubing, with three outriggers per bar from the frame. The outriggers are 2" square tubing, which allowed me to notch the ends of the outriggers and slide the main bars in, followed by a thorough welding. The 2" bars were welded to pieces of flat 1/4" thick plate to spread the load where the bars are welded to the frame. In addition, there are vertical braces on the rear two outriggers. I should have put a vertical brace on the forward outrigger, but didn't (I was in a hurry to get to the Rubicon), and the front portion of the bars subsequently bent upwards slightly after being abused. But, the bars are really nice to have, they allow me to just sit the truck down on tall rocks and slide on over. And I can jack up the entire side of the truck without the bars flexing.

Front Bumper

For this I found a big piece of 3/8" thick angle iron at the local steel house that was just the right width for the front of the truck. I made up some brackets to mount to a few different points on the front of the frame. The stock bumper mounting brackets are weak by themselves, so I used holes for the tow hooks, two holes on the front edge of the frame, and a threaded hole located on top of the frame, back a bit. It sure was nice of Toyota to provide all these nice holes with captive nuts. The bumper carries my Hi-Lift jack, where it is weathering nicely. I mounted two recovery shackles I obtained from a military surplus place (the good kind, with duece-and-a-halfs sitting out front, not some camping store). The picture is no longer current, as I've cut each side at an angle tapering out to the edge, and also angled the uprights to increase the approach angle. In the interest of recycling, the hacked off portions of the bumper are now one of my rear shackles (cut to fit, drill holes, whalla!).
Front bumper, old style
The new, svelte front bumper

Rear bumper/tire carrier

The rear bumper is home built as well, a) because I'm cheap, and b) because there were not many good bumpers around for carrying spare tires on a Toyota. Anyways, back to my bumper. The tire is mounted on a swing arm that rotates in a pipe welded into the main bumper tube. There is a 2" reciever hitch in the center (or pretty close to center) and two recovery shackles as on the front bumper. The ends of the main tube were left open, as I figured out the nose of my cast Hi-Lift jack fit in there. This is great for keeping the jack in place when the truck is up in the air. I found a little two dollar license plate lamp and wired it up so the local constabulary doesn't get excited.
The bumper
Bumper version 2

After wiping out the rear passenger side quarter panel on the Rubicon and later at Santiago Canyon, I finally decided to build some short extensions on my rear bumper to protect this area. They extend most of the way forward to the rear tire, and fit close to the body. However, I may not be done here yet, since I'd really like to get some sort of protection further up the panel, to at least keep the driver's side sheetmetal straight. Of course, I went back to Santiago and just hit the body above the new extension. Murphy's law at work....
Side bar

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Copyright Luke Miller 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002