Nautical Blue Build Thread (Big Blue) - 60K mile review - lessons, regrets, etc.

The rear is so much easier, do yourself a favor a drop the spare tire.


And drink a beer since you are half way done.



And let's take a look and see how bad this one is....

The rear of course was darker than the front, but no major issues. I can see why ECGS wants people to use 85w-140, this stuff is thick and heavy .

Let's get the new stuff in....
Torque specs are: 36ft-lbf for both drain and fill. A 24mm 6-point socket is needed


I got Blue out of the garage and went around the block for a few mins, checked for leaks, all good . I even got the rig into 4hi and 4lo just to make sure no weird sounds and good...



Blue is ready for this summer and I think we can just do this every 45K or so .

I will be doing the transfer case next week and other small things on the rig. I can't believe it has been almost 6yrs of ownership with the 4R. This unit has been super solid and good to us. The regearing remains my favorite mod and it is highly recommended for those wanting to go bigger on tires and maybe going off-road from time to time.

 

Off topic or not...but I was listening to these guys all day long as I was doing the diff job above. What a hell of a band they are - The Red Clay Strays
https://youtu.be/wUBVsOvmqKo?si=Sy9Y5CAQZsg5lWZt

 

???

Nice job.

 

I was just trying to be sarcastic with Pros, for professionals, the guys that like Torque specs and follow exactly the manual recommendations. That's all.

 

Missed my point, I guess. You have two torque specs, both for the drain.

 

Got it...yes, meant to say fill and the drain.

 

So removing the RCI skid plates yesterday in order to do the gear oil is always a pain because my plates have been thru hell and back and they are bent in certain places and it is not so easy to align them up as you get them back up. So......the temptation of seeing Blue again underneath was too much and I was like, let's just do as much as I can so decided to do the oil change a little early, I probably could have gotten 1K more miles on this but oh well, I decided to just do it and be done.

RCI skid plates have seen action. I am waiting to finish the transfer case job and then I'll put them back on.

Decided to take some shots of blue since I haven't seen it without the skid plates for quite sometime, like 4yrs.

The fumoto valve...has made oil changes so easy. One of my very very early mods.


Grandpa used to say...."when you do an oil change, it is probably the only time you get to see your car underneath"

On this round of oil changes I am going to get some data from Blackstone and see how 0w20 does compared to 0w30, so I need a sample here.


I have gotten better and better with the turnaround time with these oil changes, my first time it took like 3hrs, now I am down to 30 mins. I might apply for a Jiffy Lube job one of these days..

My goal with oil changes is always been Zero Spills...and the drain tools for the filter housing just come in so handy for this job.


Now lets just fill her up and done.

Clean up and go....get a beer

The skid plates stay on the side until next week when I get the other stuff done.

 

I imagine it was a bit refreshing being able to access the filter housing without reaching in through that square opening in the RCI skid for a change...

 

Super refreshing and easy. I was like....why do we have all of this other junk in here and make our lives miserable with putting more aftermarket things on our units! I guess my offroading bug is wearing out slowly.

 

I know...it took me trying 3 aftermarket skids with access panels to figure out I just preferred to drop the oem skid for oil changes, so that's where I am now. Off roading with Jeeps for 30 years sort of got that out of my system. Now I want stuff to work, last, and be as easy as possible to do maintenance on.

I see you're baring your metal oil filter housing for all the world to see...

 

I have been doing little maintenance here and there and just according to my time and level of expertise. One item I neglected was the greasing of the zerk fittings on the propeller shaft. I used to have a great gun and either I lost it by mistake , or someone took it and never brought it back.
In any event, I went and bought a new grease gun the NLGI2 lithium based grease for this job.
Here we go:

The rear section


Let's do the middle section, pay attention to the old grease that comes out and don't go too crazy on pumping too much grease in there either.

Now going to the front shaft, here I ended up removing the transfer case skid plate and it was justified because I needed to do the fluid as well. That comes later.


Done with the greasing. The front was pretty dry.

 

The transfer case fluid...I use the MT-LV brand. I am thinking that maybe next time I don’t do this change at the same time as the diff gear oil, but who knows, if removing the skid plates is such a PITA, then maybe it is best to do it all at once. You tell me ...



When it came out....I was like, this fluid looks good to me...this is the color in the pan

But then I said, let's compared fresh vs spent fluid...and here you go....of course the "used" or spent as I call it has been oxidized over time.

Now we are ready to fill and done.

 

I have used Redline fluids in my vehicles since the mid 90s; 80s VWs, quattro, 85 GMC, 94 Suburban, 00 TJ, 17 Tacoma,

 

Maintenance series continues.....

So I was one of the earliest adopters of SPC UCA's, the ones you had to grease every 6 months or so. I actually have never had any issues with these UCA's. I even have their non-grease version on the Taco. I know some people hate these SPC but I am ok witb them.


And I just had to inspect the rest of Blue , she looks good here too.

 

Just found this thread, my rig isn’t blue but wanted to comment, awesome build chessguy! Appreciate the step by step pics through ur build process. The 4Runner world thanks you and forgives ur fang and raptor lights transgression
I’m not brave enough to supercharge mine yet. Perhaps one day I’ll muster up the courage.
Hit me up next time ur in AZ as it would be cool to see ur rig.

 

Thanks for checking blue out. It certainly has been a project. Trying to document the journey and some of the easy DIY stuff that I have done to it and hopefully it gives others ideas and the courage to do it as well.

 

RCI Skid plates review - after 4yrs of use
they have met expectations and done their job. Are they heavy? Yes, do they have to be? Maybe. I got the steel version and they do come in Aluminum but I don't think they would last as long. Lets take a look....

The transfer case and the tranny have done most of the job. We got some good dents and scratches. I do have to say this, putting them on is a PITA

Other angles here:

Now, lets see how blue looks underneath without the plates. I have to say everything looks good for the amount of miles and some of the offroad I have done. More or less 50K miles is what I have done since I installed these skid plates over 4 yrs ago.

I think if you intend to protect the entire truck from the hard terrain or even light offroading these skid plates are a good investment. Granted they add more weight to the truck but long term critical components are protected. I couldn't be more pleased with the protection so far. A few more here - for reference blue is at 68k miles so far.


This coming weekend will do the apex tire rods upgrade and put back the skid plates and get ready for Jamboree time!

 

^Looks like the transfer case skid's crossover pipe hump took most of the beating:



Popular mod coming from the Tacoma circles is to reroute the exhaust crossover pipe aft of the transfer case, and run a flat skid plate:

 

Upgrade---- another mod in preparation for 34s and maybe 35s one day.
Tie rods - thicker and stronger by Apex chassis in AZ.

This was my first time doing this and it took some effort and making sure I was doing it right. Took lots of breaks in between.

Removed the passenger side. That was ok.

Got this one in and no issues, other side was the same.


This was probably more of preventive measurements but if 35s are to be here then I rather beef up this section. Now get Blue to an alignment shop.

 

Lessons learned with Modifications:

• Be ready to fix something else
• Spend more $ and time figuring things out
• Time and patience

So I got the rear bumper for Blue and all was great until seeing that the rear mud flaps were removed and a gap was left in there. After a little friendly offroad drive I got a bunch of mud and gravel in there and I realized this need it fixing.
So I went and bought the ARK mud flaps or covers, it is a kit, front and back. More


This was the look without it any covers....

Spend like 4 or 5 hrs yesterday trying to mold and form correctly the kit from ARK which is for stock vehicles and not for units like mine. So I had to cut and measure and this and the other....I even had to remove the back tires to get this thing well positioned in there.


How many tools and things do you need to do a little job like this?


Final Product after a few tries and a few drinks

P.S. I got the covers in the front but they rub and so i need to heat them up or just remove them all together. The tires are just too close to the corners.

 

I have the Ark micro flares. In the beginning their were gaps where they didn't sit flush. I had to trim the body mount area and used a heat gun. It helped but I was concerned it would shrink the flaps. I can say after a year they all sit flush now. I guess it needs time to settle.

 

Any thought on sound deadening above the headliner?

 

I am sure you can and have heard someone doing it on a LC 80 series, but man would this be expensive and tedious as well. I couldn't stomach the extra effort and cost.