Topic: SqWADoosh's 85 Runner Build Thread

[mdtrail-toy]

I really dig the PBR's they look bad ass    I've got the same deal . DD'ing my truck but only put 30k on it in 4 or so years. Enough to want some thing that works good for wherever you end up off road but not enough to give a damb about how many miles I really get out of them. By 20k you may want to change up anyway.   Looks Great

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

So long overdue update time. I'm about 3 months out from Moab. Just filed my taxes and I'm getting squat back so the 37s are not going to happen in time for Moab. I still am replacing my entire power steering system minus the steering box. Most of the parts have showed up including my order from Dave'z! Ordered on the 7th and it showed up today. An order from Dave'z that arrived in under a month, HAH! How'd I get so lucky, right? I'm going with a TC pump out of a Cherokee and went with an autozone refurb version of that with corresponding pulley. I am doing a major upgrade to my fluid capacity with Dave'z high mount reservoir. This thing is a beast and will easily triple the amount of fluid in the system. Now to just find a place to mount it! I also finally picked up the Sky's 3/4 less pitman arm as I plan on fixing my up-travel problems before Moab. I also got a free 20" light bar from a buddy in the club that he had laying around in his garage. He threw it my way after I fixed his busted E-Locker last weekend. So I mounted that up this evening and will be doing the wiring tomorrow. Really happy with how it fits on my bumper. Looks like it was meant to be there. 

Finally, I picked up a new tent for the upcoming season. I watch a lot of Aussie 4x4 programs and in doing so have found their use of "Swags" for tents to be very intriguing. I've been searching high and low for a provider of one stateside and finally found an awesome 2 person swag from a company called CanvasCamp. 100% heavy duty canvas with a PVC floor that comes up about 2" to keep you dry. The whole idea with swags is it is all inclusive. It comes with an integrated 2" foam matress in the base and you roll and unroll it all in one foul swoop. The other major advantage of the swag is the setup/take down time. We are talking less than 3 minutes and I'll be ready to go. 

[redneckcustoms13]

What's your hamster think about you camping with him? The tent is really nice. I can see how the ease of set up and tear down would be appreciated with that.

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

What's your hamster think about you camping with him? The tent is really nice. I can see how the ease of set up and tear down would be appreciated with that.

Hedgehog,  my friend. She sleeps through the day so was none the wiser. 

[J_Cole92]

Nice p/s pump. I've been so much happier with my p/s since i did a TC pump of a wrangler on my 4runner. Are you gonna modify the pump at all?

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

Nice p/s pump. I've been so much happier with my p/s since i did a TC pump of a wrangler on my 4runner. Are you gonna modify the pump at all?

Hadn't planned on it. Any recommendations?

[John Doe]

Finally, I picked up a new tent for the upcoming season. I watch a lot of Aussie 4x4 programs and in doing so have found their use of "Swags" for tents to be very intriguing. I've been searching high and low for a provider of one stateside and finally found an awesome 2 person swag from a company called CanvasCamp. 100% heavy duty canvas with a PVC floor that comes up about 2" to keep you dry. The whole idea with swags is it is all inclusive. It comes with an integrated 2" foam matress in the base and you roll and unroll it all in one foul swoop. The other major advantage of the swag is the setup/take down time. We are talking less than 3 minutes and I'll be ready to go. 

I really like the tent, but I hate how short it is. I have a 3 person backpacking tent that I have been using for a few years but I can not stand up in it and I am really starting to lean toward something I can stand in.

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

I really like the tent, but I hate how short it is. I have a 3 person backpacking tent that I have been using for a few years but I can not stand up in it and I am really starting to lean toward something I can stand in.

Yeah I can definitely see that as being a negative for people. Me being 6'5 I can't really stand in any tent so the advantages it provides that I listed above outweighed that for me. I have found that I really only use my tent for sleeping and everything else I do outside the tent. Another really big plus for me and the girl was the ability to just zip up the screens and be able to lay on our backs and look up at the stars.

[John Doe]

How durable/ thick is the main material? I am curious how well it would keep heat in when it is cold out.

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

http://www.canvascamp.us/us_en/cotton-tents/swag/swag-ii.html specs can be found there. I obviously haven't had a chance to put it to the test but I don't doubt it one bit after feeling the canvas and seeing the construction up close.

[J_Cole92]

i followed these instructions http://westtexasoffroad.homestead.com/powersteering.html

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

i followed these instructions http://westtexasoffroad.homestead.com/powersteering.html

Interesting, and you think it is  worthwhile?

[WaffleLux]

Swags fo' life.

Awesome wheeling accomodation!

[J_Cole92]

I drilled it out to 5/32" and stretched the spring to 2 1/2". i didn't drive until after the mod so i cant say what its like right out of the box. The flow rate of that pump stock is still more than a modified toyota pump. I think you will be fine with not doing anything to it, then again mine is modified and it works great as well. Im sure you've seen  this but this is where i got the original idea to do it to my truck. This guy did the mod to the pump as well.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/toyota-truck-4runner/630765-installing-tc-saginaw-pump-toyota-22r-cheap.html

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

9. Add off-road lights/light bars (20" freebie from a buddy)


Well I finished up my light bar install. Went really smooth with the exception of the wire harness having 2 wires wired up backwards. Once I figured that out it was smooth sailing. Did my first bit of soldering. It is ridiculously easy and I'll be doing this to all my connections going forward.

[1985CRAWLER]

Finally !!! A light bar !! , get rock lights and snow wheel at night ! Life changing

[H8PVMNT]

Finally !!! A light bar !! , get rock lights and snow wheel at night ! Life changing

I agree, rock lights on in the snow is surreal.

[1985CRAWLER]

I agree, rock lights on in the snow is surreal.

Oh yea it's all I wanna do, I'd rather snow wheel at night now then during the day which I know Is crazy because you can see better in the day but just being out there plowing fresh powder in pitch black with the leds on ,screaming rev limiter ,nothing like it

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

Rock lights + 2 spot pods go in on Wednesday when they show up. Friday night I'm leading the club back up to Tonga for a night run 

[H8PVMNT]

Your 4runner is looking good these days.  Looking at your truck makes me want to plaz off my partial/tube fenders and paint up some 4WD fenders.  Problem is if I ever start wheeling hard again I'll flop and my doors won't open right.  We have miles of v-notch "coulees" to wheel in my area and you tend to end up grinding your front fenders into the dirt while you drive out of a mild flop.  Maybe I'd better just make tube protection for the rear to balance out the look.

We don't need too many cloned red 4runners anyway.  If I did real fenders and made it to one of your tail rides people would think we had matching jump suits.  That would be lame.

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

Your 4runner is looking good these days.  Looking at your truck makes me want to plaz off my partial/tube fenders and paint up some 4WD fenders.  Problem is if I ever start wheeling hard again I'll flop and my doors won't open right.  We have miles of v-notch "coulees" to wheel in my area and you tend to end up grinding your front fenders into the dirt while you drive out of a mild flop.  Maybe I'd better just make tube protection for the rear to balance out the look.

We don't need too many cloned red 4runners anyway.  If I did real fenders and made it to one of your tail rides people would think we had matching jump suits.  That would be lame.

I'm going to be adding tube that runs from front bumper to slider and likewise with rear bumper that will follow the fender lines and should prevent such things from happening. I know what you are talking about as I trashed my rear passenger fender on my flop last summer.

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

You gonna make Naches this year?

[H8PVMNT]

You gonna make Naches this year?

When are you guys wheeling it? I'll start a jar for gas money .

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

When are you guys wheeling it? I'll start a jar for gas money .

June it looks like.

[63W]

Sweet count me in. What trails you planning on running?

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

Sweet count me in. What trails you planning on running?

All of them 

[SqWADoosh [OP]]

43. Install Rock Lights (All4OffRoad)
44. Install spot lights on front bumper

Got some more work done this week. Starting with the addition of two spot pods to the underside of my front bumper. I opted to countersink the fasteners to keep the look clean on the bumper rather than having a bolt and nut sticking up through the holes. The pods are from a company called Auxbeam that I found on Amazon with glowing reviews. The 2 pods only cost me $20 and I'm very happy with the quality and light output of them.







I also finally installed my 6 rock lights I've had since last summer from All4Offroad. They are very cheap in quality and I had to superglue the frames back to the lights as they fell off with just a slight amount of handling. I don't hold high hopes for them as a buddy in my club has them and has already had 3 failures and hasn't even had them in for 6 months. However I already spent the money on them so I might as well run them. They put out a decent amount of light for how low profile they are so I'll run them until they break and then count it as a lesson learned about that company. I did think ahead however and did my wiring in a manner that I can add lights anywhere on the underside of my truck with very little effort. I ran a positive wire and negative wire in a loop around my frame securing it with zip ties the whole way. This will allow me to swap in some higher quality lights down the road and not have to deal with any wiring other than placing spade connectors on the new lights and plugging them in. I also decided to modify the All4Offroad lights by putting some cheap rare earth magnets on the back of them rather than trying to use the 3M adhesive they came with. This allows me to re-position the lights to achieve the best light coverage as well as is a great mounting solution.





For weatherproofing my new connections that would be subject to the elements I went with something new to me. I found this liquid electrical tape during my research and decided to give it a try. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it. Just brush on a couple coats and by all means it appears to be providing excellent sealing properties to the connections.





When it came time to cut into my bezel to add the new rocker switches I initially tried to get by with an $8 Harbor Freight rotary tool. I knew better but was being a cheap ass. Sure enough it was a complete utter piece of and went right into the trash 5 minutes into attempting to get it to do ANYTHING of worth. So the next day I went out and got the real thing. Sprung for a nice Dremel 3000 model which did a great job as expected. I choose to go with the 5 prong dual LED rocker switches. I'm very happy with them and think they turned out very nice. In case anyone is wondering the "rock lights" one is in sideways because I already had a hole in my bezel from where the previous owner had a switch there and I wanted to fill it rather than drill another one.










Finally the results:







I couldn't be happier with the spot pods + light bar combo. Puts out an incredible amount of light for the money I spent. The rock lights leave much to be desired however they are working for now so we will see what is to come with those.

[OTO Phil]

I also bought a set of those 6LED pods... Make sure you take them apart and put some permatex black (just for color matching that's what I did) on the side panels to ensure complete water-proof-ness...

You can also go a step further, and eliminate all vapor by inserting a small pouch of desiccants. Like the kind you can find in some shoes...

But yeah, that looks great! That's what I'm shooting for, but I'll be putting a set of those pods in the rear for those pesky tail-gaters

[1985CRAWLER]

Very clean work Andrew ! Get out there and do some night runs and use that lighting , really makes all the difference, I might copy that pods under the lower side of bumper

[BigBluePile]

Nicely done!  I may have to hit up Amazon for some of them lights!

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