Unevolved's 2005 4Runner Build

[unevolved]

I've been fighting off a cold for the past two weeks, and today's the first day I've felt semi-normal in a while. I ordered some new upper control arms to get caster back into spec, it was somewhere between 0 and 1 degree with the factory control arms and OME lift.

MacPherson strut conversion.

They came with these bright stickers, which had to go.

First one installed! Much better without the stickers, IMO. The flat black finish played more of a role in the selection process than it probably should have, I'm not a fan of bright colored suspension parts on my daily drivers.

Wash, rinse, repeat on the other side.

Add a Camburg sticker to the Stickered Cabinet of Justice™, and throw away the other five that came with the control arms.

Put it all back together to go for a test drive, start it up, and...

Dammit. Wheel speed sensor wiring got damaged somewhere.

Poked around with a DMM and some test leads, and found breaks in both sides of the right front harness. No sign of any damage from the outside. Man, people arent exaggerating when they say these things are fragile.

Decided to drive to work in my wife's car and fix it right. OEM replacement is $50, and I'm not super impressed with how it held up. So I took both connectors, crimped on some milspec M22759 22ga wire.

Twist the pairs togethers, cover it in DR-25 heat shrink, and close it all up with ATUM glue shrink. Better than new!

It's now 0.0005% more milspec.

All in all, not a hard job. I'm disappointed in how fragile the wheel speed sensor wiring was. Easy to see why those are so commonly damaged. I can already tell it's handling much better, the wandering tendency at speed is all but gone. Hopefully over the next week I'll find time to put it on the alignment machine at work.

 

[Taco Loco]

Looks great!

 

[tx_shooter]

Really wish my wiring jobs looked that good.

 

[Taco Loco]

Really wish my wiring jobs looked that good.

quality is important on wiring

 

[Taco Loco]

and the taking bit more time

 

[Silverback]

Yeah nice work on the wiring. Where did you get those little insulation-less crimp connectors?

 

[unevolved]

The crimps are actually ECU pins with the terminals trimmed off. I just buy them from Mouser in 100pc rolls and use them for small crimps like this.

But yeah, wiring is 99% materials selection. It's taken me the better part of a year to figure out what wire, connectors, and tools I need to do "proper" System 25-style milspec wiring at work. It was almost painful for me to reuse those connectors and not track down the manufacturer and buy new ones.

 

[unevolved]

On that note, I'm always down to help wire stuff up or help out if needed. For some reason, I enjoy it.

 

[unevolved]

Slight update, got the dash replaced under warranty. It was a little weird letting someone else work on my truck, but for a free dash replacement, it was worth it. They also pushed the update to the ECU that won't let you hit the gas and brakes at the same time, which I'm not super enthused about. I had wrongly assumed they'd call me before applying any updates we hadn't talked about. Womp womp.

 

[tx_shooter]

What was up with your dash?

 

[unevolved]

All of the 4th gen dashes (and I mean ALL of them) crack in the sun after a few years. Enough people got upset that Toyota is replacing them all. All you have to do is go to the dealer, have them verify the condition, and they'll order a replacement (6 months).

Yeah, people had to complain for it to be fixed, but it's much better than what GM would have done. I considered it just part of owning a 10 year old vehicle, but nope.

 

[tx_shooter]

Pretty nice to get the dash replaced. I have never seen a ten year old Dodge that didn't have a cracked dash.

 

[unevolved]

Got the Prinsu Roofrac installed today! Very impressed with the quality and ease of installation. Everything bolted up the first time, and the hardware is all high quality stuff. Torx head, black zinc coated, etc.

Took the OEM rack off:

Laid out all the pieces:

Assembled and squared up on the ground:

Then we lifted it onto the roof, and tightened it down.

The curve across the bottom of the wind deflector isn't perfect, but it's really well done for such a complex shape. That's a tough arc to get right. It's really tight to the roof, and should cut down on wind noise nicely. It looks like it'd be possible to seal it to the roof with some weatherstripping, but I'm not sure how necessary that is. It's extremely stout, it's backed by the same 1" x 2 crossmembers used on the rest of the rack. It'd be a great place to mount a lightbar for sure.

Came with a couple tiedown eyelets, but it'd be real easy to add whatever you want. The T-slot extrusion is sized such that a 1/4" carriage bolt slides right in, and doesn't require a nut or backup tool when tightening.

Took two people an hour to install, working at a relaxing pace. I might have to get creative with roof tent mounting hardware, but I've got some ideas there.

 

[unevolved]

Side note- Man, I need to replace my headlights. They're pretty yellowed and cracked. Not sure they'll come back to life with just polishing at this point.

 

[Taco Loco]

Got the Prinsu Roofrac installed today! Very impressed with the quality and ease of installation. Everything bolted up the first time, and the hardware is all high quality stuff. Torx head, black zinc coated, etc.

Took the OEM rack off:

Laid out all the pieces:

Assembled and squared up on the ground:

Then we lifted it onto the roof, and tightened it down.

The curve across the bottom of the wind deflector isn't perfect, but it's really well done for such a complex shape. That's a tough arc to get right. It's really tight to the roof, and should cut down on wind noise nicely. It looks like it'd be possible to seal it to the roof with some weatherstripping, but I'm not sure how necessary that is. It's extremely stout, it's backed by the same 1" x 2 crossmembers used on the rest of the rack. It'd be a great place to mount a lightbar for sure.

Came with a couple tiedown eyelets, but it'd be real easy to add whatever you want. The T-slot extrusion is sized such that a 1/4" carriage bolt slides right in, and doesn't require a nut or backup tool when tightening.

Took two people an hour to install, working at a relaxing pace. I might have to get creative with roof tent mounting hardware, but I've got some ideas there.

Nice

 

[tx_shooter]

I really wish Prinsu made 3rd gen racks. Their racks really do compliment the vehicle.

 

[tx_shooter]

Okay; it has been 24 hours. Is the RTT mounted yet? I am waiting to drool here.

 

[unevolved]

Okay; it has been 24 hours. Is the RTT mounted yet? I am waiting to drool here.

No, not yet. I've got some ideas I want to try out, but I'm spending most of my free time on the house at the moment. Hopefully I'll have it up there in the next couple of weeks.

 

[tx_shooter]

What angle is that fairing at on the roof rack? Asking for a friend.

 

[unevolved]

About 42 degrees from vertical.