4RunAmok
Explorer
The Tundra brakes are intalled on the 4Runner, and I thought you guys would enjoy my write-up...Especially after what I went through. The actual work was easy, the technicalities will be hilarious... Well for YOU anyway, I actually had to go through it! But I can assure you, it was worth doing to get 30% more surface area contact out of the new brakes.
I had the use of my friends shop on a Saturday. I started at 10am and was SUPPOSED to be done by 2pm so he could do other things that day. I finished at 5pm
Picture 1 is before I disassembled the stock brakes. These brakes needed to be changed soon anyway, but the rotors have already been turned to their limits, and would have needed to be replaced as well. So I figured I'd upgrade to a better setup now while I had the chance.
Picture 2 is new Tundra caliper, 4 pistons. The 4Runner caliper has 4 pistons as well, but they're smaller. The Tundra caliper is also wider to fit the much wider rotor. Notice the little red plug in the brake fluid port.
Picture 3 is a shot of the brake line removed from the hose, I used the red plug from the new caliper to plug the hose end. Since I was a little pressed for time when I did the other side, I did not do this, and even though I had the old caliper off and the new caliper on in a short period of time, the amount of brake fluid spilled on the other side was considerably more. So use the plug if your caliper came with one, if not, then make a plug. As temping as it may seem, DO NOT pinch the brake line hose with a hemostat to supress leaking, it weakens them, and with the extending we do to ours, it doesn't need more help breaking.
Picture 4 is a shot of the new Tundra rotor and caliper installed. Those in the know, will see immediately here that I mounted the wrong caliper to the driver side of the 4Runner. Yes, it's upside down. So THAT'S what that R on one of them, and the L on the other is for... This didn't take too long to correct.
Picture 5 is a shot of the new rotor and caliper mounted (still on the wrong side) before the brake pads were installed. Installing the pads and the retaining pins lead to a grim discovery as shown in the next picture.
Picture 6 is a shot of the Tundra caliper with the brake pad retaining pins put in place. Look closely, what's wrong with this picture. You should know that this picture was taken AFTER finally resolving the problem. Do you see it yet? Yes, that's right, the pin on the right is SHORTER than the pin on the left, very observant of you. You have offically spotted this in less time than I did. But once I did, after I stopped being really mad, I went to the parts store where I bought the calipers, remember this was on a Saturday.
They didn't have the correct replacement pins, and said it would be MONDAY before they'll have any. Remember that I discovered this while trying to put the retainer clip in the pins while installed in the caliper, my 4Runner is in pieces in my friends shop. I had to use my other car to goto the store I bought calipers from, and after he called EVERY other local place to find out there were none around, I went off try to find them myself.
1st stop was the local Toyota junk yard, he refused to seperate them from salvaged calipers and I was not about to buy another set of calipers to obtain 4 little pins. My 2nd stop was another salvage yard who also refused to seperate the pins. So I head off again, this time on the cellphone to ALL of the local Toyota dealer parts departments. I found two pins at (3rd stop) Toyota of North Hollywood, one pin at (4th stop) Hamer Toyota in Mission Hills, and the last pin at (5th stop) Keyes Toyota in Van Nuys. It's now 2pm, time for my friend to close up and go about the rest of his day. Thankfully, he waited 3 more hours for me to get back and finish the job.
Picture 7 is a shot of the pins and their size difference.
Picture 8 is a shot of the pins properly installed with the retaining clip.
Picture 9 is the last shot, the right side properly installed, brakes bled, job completed.
I must tell you, if you have a 4Runner, this should not really be an upgrade, it should be considered necessary, it stops better than ever. Maybe it was because my front brakes were near the end of their lifespan, or the 4Runner really is under-equipted on the front brakes, it now stops like it should, smoothly, quickly, and without the feeling it's taking too much to stop the vehicle.
There is a lot of known cases of the rotors warping on the 96-02 "3rd Gen" 4Runners, mine being one of them. Applying the brakes on hills, the front end would shimmy ever so slightly. Even right after a brake job (the last time was the worst since the rotors are as thin as they're allowed to be turned down to) they would start the shimmies after only a few good stops. I've always shut off the overdrive on stops going down hill so that the load on the brakes is lightened.
With the new brakes and two days and lots of stops on them so far, even a couple hard ones, they feel great, and I noticed I stopped shutting off the overdrive too.
Hope you enjoyed my mishaps and successes during this upgrade.
I had the use of my friends shop on a Saturday. I started at 10am and was SUPPOSED to be done by 2pm so he could do other things that day. I finished at 5pm
Picture 1 is before I disassembled the stock brakes. These brakes needed to be changed soon anyway, but the rotors have already been turned to their limits, and would have needed to be replaced as well. So I figured I'd upgrade to a better setup now while I had the chance.
Picture 2 is new Tundra caliper, 4 pistons. The 4Runner caliper has 4 pistons as well, but they're smaller. The Tundra caliper is also wider to fit the much wider rotor. Notice the little red plug in the brake fluid port.
Picture 3 is a shot of the brake line removed from the hose, I used the red plug from the new caliper to plug the hose end. Since I was a little pressed for time when I did the other side, I did not do this, and even though I had the old caliper off and the new caliper on in a short period of time, the amount of brake fluid spilled on the other side was considerably more. So use the plug if your caliper came with one, if not, then make a plug. As temping as it may seem, DO NOT pinch the brake line hose with a hemostat to supress leaking, it weakens them, and with the extending we do to ours, it doesn't need more help breaking.
Picture 4 is a shot of the new Tundra rotor and caliper installed. Those in the know, will see immediately here that I mounted the wrong caliper to the driver side of the 4Runner. Yes, it's upside down. So THAT'S what that R on one of them, and the L on the other is for... This didn't take too long to correct.
Picture 5 is a shot of the new rotor and caliper mounted (still on the wrong side) before the brake pads were installed. Installing the pads and the retaining pins lead to a grim discovery as shown in the next picture.
Picture 6 is a shot of the Tundra caliper with the brake pad retaining pins put in place. Look closely, what's wrong with this picture. You should know that this picture was taken AFTER finally resolving the problem. Do you see it yet? Yes, that's right, the pin on the right is SHORTER than the pin on the left, very observant of you. You have offically spotted this in less time than I did. But once I did, after I stopped being really mad, I went to the parts store where I bought the calipers, remember this was on a Saturday.
They didn't have the correct replacement pins, and said it would be MONDAY before they'll have any. Remember that I discovered this while trying to put the retainer clip in the pins while installed in the caliper, my 4Runner is in pieces in my friends shop. I had to use my other car to goto the store I bought calipers from, and after he called EVERY other local place to find out there were none around, I went off try to find them myself.
1st stop was the local Toyota junk yard, he refused to seperate them from salvaged calipers and I was not about to buy another set of calipers to obtain 4 little pins. My 2nd stop was another salvage yard who also refused to seperate the pins. So I head off again, this time on the cellphone to ALL of the local Toyota dealer parts departments. I found two pins at (3rd stop) Toyota of North Hollywood, one pin at (4th stop) Hamer Toyota in Mission Hills, and the last pin at (5th stop) Keyes Toyota in Van Nuys. It's now 2pm, time for my friend to close up and go about the rest of his day. Thankfully, he waited 3 more hours for me to get back and finish the job.
Picture 7 is a shot of the pins and their size difference.
Picture 8 is a shot of the pins properly installed with the retaining clip.
Picture 9 is the last shot, the right side properly installed, brakes bled, job completed.
I must tell you, if you have a 4Runner, this should not really be an upgrade, it should be considered necessary, it stops better than ever. Maybe it was because my front brakes were near the end of their lifespan, or the 4Runner really is under-equipted on the front brakes, it now stops like it should, smoothly, quickly, and without the feeling it's taking too much to stop the vehicle.
There is a lot of known cases of the rotors warping on the 96-02 "3rd Gen" 4Runners, mine being one of them. Applying the brakes on hills, the front end would shimmy ever so slightly. Even right after a brake job (the last time was the worst since the rotors are as thin as they're allowed to be turned down to) they would start the shimmies after only a few good stops. I've always shut off the overdrive on stops going down hill so that the load on the brakes is lightened.
With the new brakes and two days and lots of stops on them so far, even a couple hard ones, they feel great, and I noticed I stopped shutting off the overdrive too.
Hope you enjoyed my mishaps and successes during this upgrade.