What have you done to your 4th Gen 4Runner today?

On another note, back to my 4th gen, the other day I noticed the car was ever so slightly pulling to the left so I checked my tire pressures on all 4 corners. I usually fill them up to 35psi. All 4 were low by just a couple psi, but my back rear tire was at like 27psi... hmm interesting. Aired up all tires to 35psi and didn't think much of it.

Well, when my dad came over to do the vehicle swap I mentioned, 'you should be good to go I just filled all 4 tires up with air, but weird, the drivers rear was extra low'... and as I'm saying this to him, I notice a nail in that tire I didn't notice before. It's been holding fairly fine for the week I've been driving it, so I don't think there is much concern with him borrowing it to get this table.

However, new tires may be on the horizon sooner than i expected. The tires are old and worn down pretty good (Michelin Defenders) and I'm sure the nail could be patched since its right in the middle of the tread. But I need new tires anyways and want to go up a size to 265/70/17 (vs 265/65/17s on there now). Was hoping to wait until black Friday or some thanksgiving deals.

 

Throw a spare tire on and indeed wait for black Friday!

 

My cheap ass only bought 4 black TRD wheels so my spare wouldn’t match. Could probably still come out ahead paying for the tire to be patched and waiting for Black Friday.

 

Fair enough...I too, have only x4 wheels that match...cheapest thing first and hurry up and wait!

 

Centric coated rotors and Akebono ProACT ceramic pads installed at 200k miles. My old ones were only maybe 15k and a year and a half old but they were the OEM Toyota non-ceramic. They were super dusty and noisy, wife hated driving it so I replaced them. Much quieter and hopefully will stay that way.

Rotated tires and bedded the pads too. I have a set of TC UCA's I need to rebuild and install. Will order the parts and get it done to replace my SPC going on 10 year old UCA's.

Will probably have to remove my taco tab cam bolt delete kit and use the factory cams since I'm removing the adjustable UCA. We'll see what happens.

I think I need a steering rack too, very small amount of fluid found in bellows last year when swapping inner and outer tie rods. I'm happy to do the maintenance (do it all myself) because she has given me 12 years and 115k problem free miles so far.

 

Got my 04 back, man i love it. I used to think one day i might upgrade to a 5th gen but after spending 3 days with one, nah.

I'll edit my post because i'm not knocking the 5th gen. In the Limited trim my parents have, its super nice, materials all feel good, the whole vehicle felt really solid. The power was underwhelming and the engine is noisy, in my opinion, because its working harder to do the same thing. Right off the bat i could immediately tell a difference in how much quieter the v8 is, probably because it can do everything i need it to at like 1,500rpms.

 

In case it’s useful for anyone - would have been for me before wasting hours on a driver’s side 02 sensor install issue b/c some bad online info had me thinking that was Bank 1. It isn’t.

 

This is helpful!

 

UCA’s rebuilt and about ready for install. Waiting on misalignment spacers for the uniballs. Will likely tackle that this coming week probably Tuesday or so.

 

Looking fresh! I'm Curtis how much better these week be over the SPCs! Are your SPCs "updated" withering new UBJ and axis bushings, by chance?

 

They are not, they’re the first redesign after a bunch of people had the arms fail due to bad bushing design, but not the Axis which is their current design.

I’ll probably offload them cheap if you’re interested, but they’d need a rebuild. Haven’t looked at what a rebuild kit costs.

Kit for the TC ones was almost $500, but I got the arms for real cheap? So pretty good deal considering they’re almost $1k new.

 

Gotcha, I actually rebuilt my SPCs to their current design for about $300 which included their newer UBJs...so far, they're already way better...thank you for the opportunity, but I'm hoping to be done needing UCAs!

 

$300 isn’t bad, how hard was the bushing retrofit? I seem to remember reading somewhere it was a bear.

 

It was a bear but with the right tools, it went well...getting the old crap bushings out was just time consuming but install was a breeze.

 

Just watched a video where a guy used a specific press kit and made it look easy, no drilling involved with that kit you can rent. Maybe I’ll rebuild them and sell them still at a good price.

 

Well made an appointment for this morning to have the tire patched. I told the guy i was just waiting for black friday before buying all new tires. He ended up just hooking me up with the deal now, ended up being over $200 off the set. Still expensive, but now i have the 265/70/17 Michelins instead of the 265/65/17's. They look good!

Also got an alignment to correct my toe which was out of spec.

 

Show us the results when all put together and in your possession! Nice work! Deals are nice to be on the winning side of!

 

Might be hard to see with the sun and the black on black of the wheels/tires:



I’ll try to get a better picture at some point.

and just to clarify these are the Defender LTX M/S2’s replacing the discontinued LTX M/S's

Besides the tire needing a patch, they were old and starting to crack and the tread wasn't great, especially on the fronts (due to not rotating them regularly, and the bad toe setting). I could already tell a pretty big improvement in ride quality just driving home from the tire shop.

edit: maybe a slightly better picture:

 

That looks great! Good tire/wheel combo and it's WAY better with just even one size up! Good choice!!

 

Well thankfully when I got the new tires they must have reprogrammed my TPMS sensors because I no longer have the solid light on. Finally!

and here’s my alignment specs:

 

That's a solid Friday treat!

 

Total Chaos UCA’s installed.

I got the arms for I think $100? Off a dude locally.

Rebuild kit (bearings, bushings, bearing tool, grease) cost $412.

New misalignment spacers cost $80, the ones I got with the arms were corroded and beat up.

I replaced the grease zerks as well, already had a variety pack of those on hand. Overall an easy job and saved about $400 compared to buying a new set ($950 new plus shipping/tax).

Checked the toe afterwards and it’s good on the driver, passenger has about a 1/4” in, I’ll fix it tomorrow.

I hadn’t noticed when Firestone did my last alignment they sandwiched the ball joint plate on my SPC’s wrong. It should be in the channel not sitting across it like it is. These ball joints were completely floppy, zero resistance!

Now I gotta rebuild the rear shocks, I have everything on hand except nitrogen. One of my local buds from a Toyota off-road club said he has a setup and will charge them for me. When I did the fronts probably 3 years ago (shame for not doing both at the same time) I went to a motorcycle shop and they charged me $20 a shock, not bad.

 

Definitely not aligned correctly...but, those SPC UBJs wore out faster than velvet socks on the SanFran roads! I. Glad to be rocking their new veraions...but also REALLY hoping they last at least twice as long! We'll see...nice work on your updated front end!!

 

The numbers were good, I just didn’t notice when I peeked under there I guess. Glad nothing scary happened. Feels so much tighter with the TC, my ball joints were bad and for a long time probably. My tires look good at least, no cupping I can tell.

 

Alignment at 86000 miles. Was slightly pulling to right.
Settings after alignment
Camber-.2
Caster 3.0/3.1
Toe .06 both

 

Used Canva to create a custom home screen for my Pioneer headunit. My pic at Cape Lookout National Seashore.

 

Alignment after TC UCA install. The Firestone lifetime has really paid off. Been using it for 12 years!!!!

 

Meant to ask before - how did you get the code for the additional 25%? Was it specific to Fred Anderson Toyota? Toyota is starting another 25% off sale 11/24 and I’m wondering whether another additional discount code might become available. TIA.

As for what I did with my 4R today, hit 279K and got my replacement O2 sensor installed.

 

The code was shared thru another forum as a one-time-use code...it would work for any online toyota parts center...I didn't have any luck at my local dealer, however. So, not Fred Anderson specific and if you've used it already, set up an account for your wife/girlfriend and use it again! Work arounds for the win!!

 

I hit 279K a couple of days ago. Also got the new O2 sensor installed, replacing the one that was damaged in transit.