I'm not going to type much now. I was up from 5:30AM Friday morning until closer to 1AM Sunday morning. Went from Reading, PA to Marshall, MI and back in one day. It was close to a 1300 mile round trip for me. I'm beat and that's all there is to it!
It's an 85 4Runner so it already has a straight axle up front. 4.88s front and rear, both axles are open though. It supposably has the transmission and tcase from a turbo'd 22RE so it has a super low first gear, which is awesome for rock crawling. Not to mention it's supose to be a lot stronger than a normal transmission and tcase. All but brand new 33x12.50x15 Super Swampers.
It needs a lot of work, and it's no beauty pageant winner, but I could care less. I no longer have to worry about getting to work on Mondays.
A club member from my chapter of TTORA helped me go get it. So we used his 07 Crewmax Tundra to get it. I got to drive it abou 10 hours and I'm seriously thinking about trading in my Tacoma for one. If I don't lose too much money I might. I towed the 4Runner home on a dolly the last 100 miles to my house. It towed it good, but braking was a bit to be desired. It stopped but I had to make use of downshifting my automatic.
Looks like it needs a bit of rust control, but at least you won't be sweating body damage on the trails.
Body damage? Dude you have no idea. It'll be so nice knowing the next dent I receive out the trails will not bother me one bit. In fact, I plan on putting this fukker on it's side the first time I go to Rausch Creek.
Jim and Chad:
Picture that washout Jordan flopped it on twice...but me and my 4Runner.
Speaking of rust...I found one spot on the frame that definitely needs some attention. I just hope it can be fixed. What was once a hairline fracture turned into a larger crack with some love from a hammer. That's on the driver side right past the front body mount.
Other than that spot, the frame looks fine, just a ton of surface rust.
And I forgot to mention that I had a little incident with the tow dolly at home. My gimp ass + a slight downhill grade in front of my house =
Luckily I bought 10$ worth of insurance from UHaul which is good for 5,000$ worth of damages.
Body damage? Dude you have no idea. It'll be so nice knowing the next dent I receive out the trails will not bother me one bit. In fact, I plan on putting this fukker on it's side the first time I go to Rausch Creek.
Jim and Chad:
Picture that washout Jordan flopped it on twice...but me and my 4Runner.
Speaking of rust...I found one spot on the frame that definitely needs some attention. I just hope it can be fixed. What was once a hairline fracture turned into a larger crack with some love from a hammer. That's on the driver side right past the front body mount.
Other than that spot, the frame looks fine, just a ton of surface rust.
And I forgot to mention that I had a little incident with the tow dolly at home. My gimp ass + a slight downhill grade in front of my house =
Luckily I bought 10$ worth of insurance from UHaul which is good for 5,000$ worth of damages.
That is gona be sweet! I, will make sure I get it all on digital and, as for that dent, dohh that is what you were talking about, see insurance is a good thing!
To fix that crack clean all the rust off of the frame. Drill out the end of the crack to prevent it from spreading further. Then weld a plate to the frame that extends a bit past the end of the crack. Before doing that though, I would check over the entire frame to make sure it is worth saving. It may be easier to get a second truck and merge the two. You will probably want to get a parts truck anyway.
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Don't you SAS me boy.
Please wheel responsibly.
To fix that crack clean all the rust off of the frame. Drill out the end of the crack to prevent it from spreading further. Then weld a plate to the frame that extends a bit past the end of the crack. Before doing that though, I would check over the entire frame to make sure it is worth saving. It may be easier to get a second truck and merge the two. You will probably want to get a parts truck anyway.
A club member of mine is going to fix it for me. He said he's gonna clean the rust off, weld the crack shut, and then weld a plate over that entire portion of the frame. There's nothing like overkill when it comes to building up a rig! We're going to go over the rest of the frame to see if anything else needs to be taken care of while we're at it.
As for a parts truck I only have room for one truck. Hell I don't even have an indoor area to work on it. I'll have to wait until the weather gets warmer before I can start tearing into it. I have a VERY capable wrencher/fabricator willing to lend me a hand, so I don't think I'll have a problem getting this thing up and running. Unfortunately the person helping me is in the process of building up two trucks so I have to wait until his shop has space.
Looks like I'm going to miss the April 5th event at Rausch. I have the type of luck that if I were to wheel my DD knowing I have a beater to wheel with instead, I'll do something terribly bad to it and not have money to build up the beater.
For the guys that went wheeling with me and the PA Chapter (TTORA), Jordan is hooking me up.
He's giving me a set of bucket seats for the front, since the driver's side one is so screwed up. He's fixing the frame. He's either going to help me rebuild the engine that's in it now, or swap out the spare one I got. We're going to throw the IFS rear axle on to widen up the back, and may do a 63" Chevy swap, with the ever infamous buggy schackle setup. As for the front, I'm going to rebuild the knuckles myself, or at least try. Then hopefully we can find IFS hubs/rotors from a junkyard to do an IFS hub swap up front for a little wider stance up there as well.
I'm going over to his shop this weekend to help him out. Apparently he revamped his current rig and ended up building one up for his girlfriend to wheel. Sweet eh?
Voodoochile:
There's a washout all the guys play in at the park we go to and most of them ended up putting their rigs on their sides. Expect pictures of me doing the exact same thing the first time I take it up there.
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Looks like the perfect trail rig to me. 
I've always had a soft spot for old 4runners. Keep us updated on your build. 
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