Flightless 4runner

[Flightless Kiwis]

Hi all,

We are currently rebuilding our rig in Mexico after a year on the road ( Alaska - Argentina ). I have a thread in the Trips in Progress forum but I thought I would post here too with 4runner related happenings.

We are from New Zealand and have a 2001 4runner. 3.4L with a little over 250K miles on the clock. We purchased the rig in Wasilla, Alaska in May 2014 and have been heading slowly south ever since.

We have had no trouble with it until recently when a few things have needed attention. First up the brakes. It seems the 01 4runner has a integrated Booster/Master cylinder/ABS/traction control arrangement.



This has worked fine for over a year, but over a couple of days completely quit on us. We tried to diagnose ourselves with the manuals etc. but all our efforts lead to needing this lump replaced. To be sure we took it to Toyota and as expected we were given the bad news, the whole unit needs to be replaced, only $48703MXN ($3141USD) ... what a bargain!! Off course theres no way we were ever going to pay that, the car only cost $6k.

So with the help of Calvin from Overland Oasis, Oaxaca we replaced this with a regular booster and master cylinder. Aside from the obvious drawbacks, no ABS or traction control ( some might say this isnt a bad thing ) the brakes work great again.



Now all we have to do is figure out how to permanently get rid of all the errors being thrown by removing the old brake booster unit.

You can see more about our trip in the Trips in Progress section or at www.flightlesskiwis.com. We are also completely remodelling the interior of the runner and will post here as we progress.

 

[batmn77]

glad to hear your brakes are fixed. post some pics of the rig and your setup! safe travels.

 

[mantree91]

its ok flying by the seat of your pants is way more fun my truck has no abs or trac and i leave it in rwd even in the snow 4wd only gets kicked in on icy hills and rutted trails

 

[Flightless Kiwis]

Some reassembly required ?!

Now the brakes are sorted out the next project is to reattach the rear suspension mounting plate. It seems at some point, some damage was done to this part of the chassis and has slowly gotten increasingly worse over time. The only reason I found this was because the brakes failed and I was checking the wheel speed sensors for damage. I didn't accurately measure but from using the eye-o-meter most of what was supposed to be attached no longer was.

View attachment 293494
Suspension top plate where it should be welded to the chassis.

View attachment 293495
Peaking between the body and chassis. This tear is toward the back of the plate.

View attachment 293496
Same tear as above but from below. Scuff mark is from the spring bouncing out of where it should be.

I don't have a good picture but the line of weld along the front edge of this plate had also come away.

However, once again, with the help of Calvin from Overland Oasis, Oaxaca we managed to get in, realign, and weld the plate back in place.

View attachment 293497

View attachment 293498
Everything back where it should be

I guess the lesson here is even if everything seems all good inspecting underneath your rig every now and then is probably a very good idea ... mostly because I also noticed the front sway bar bushing need to be replaced and there is visible movement in the rack and pinion bushings, probably could have left it but since I will have the tools out...