Project 4FunR

[stevo-mt]

Project 4FunR aka the "Tundra Turtle" is a build that I am doing for my best friend Travis from the bush in Alaska. We started with discussion and design criteria that would meet his specifications. Travis had moved from Soldotna to the bush a couple years after purchasing a new Chevy 1500 pickup. Last year he came on a road trip with me in my expedition truck (General Motors M1010 "the Mountain Turtle") that I've been building for a while. After two weeks and 3500 miles of heading around the northwest in winter he was hooked. Shortly after he decided to sell his truck and upgrade to a 2002 Toyota 4runner.




The vehicle that was chosen was a 2002 Toyota 4runner, 3.4l V6, automatic, SR5, 135k miles. This 4runner was the product of a two week trip through the Northwest going to every dealer and searching private parties on Craigslist. Travis found this one at the dealership in Boise, ID. It was by far and away the cleanest used vehicle I've ever laid my eyes on. The vehicle was owned by one person that had bought it from that dealer and had been purchased back. The trail of records starts at mile 0! We parked the Toyota in my shop last spring before I went to work for the season and the project began at the end of 2014. At this point in time I have two solid months of work into this vehicle. This is my second major project and I rather enjoy it. I look forward to building another one next winter. So if you know anyone who needs one build let me know!

The criteria that determined the build were mostly a scaled down version my truck. Travis wanted to be able to camp out any time of year on the road system in Alaska. Go down trails and offroad as necessary. Based upon that we set out to build an awesome possum rig! Travis's other vehicle, a 1991 SR5 4runner, has 280k miles on it. These things are bullet proof!

To keep the cold out an Espar B1LC air heater is the main source of cabin heat. This heater taps into the 4Funr's gas tank and provides a safe means of heat without having to carry a propane tank or fuel oil. My truck has two espar heaters and they are very good quality components and essentially the centerpiece of both our builds due to the usability during winter.

So after deciding on having an Espar Travis came up with a list of the goodies we were going to put in:

2" Senoran Steel Lift kit with Bilstien 5100 shocks in front, Landcruiser shocks/springs in back (to make up for the additional weight for the extra weight added)
20 inch Baja Designs OnX Light Bar
4xInnovations front and rear bumpers
Cooper STMaxx 265x75xR16 tires
Odyssey PC1500 battery for main vehicle battery
Odyssey PC1200 for auxillery battery
Cooper bussman circuit breakers (type 3, switchable)
Blue sea systems 12 circuit fuse panel
200 amp SurePower battery seperator
Auxillery battery switch (heavy duty manual disconnect switch)
Smittybuilt x20 10,000# winch w/synthetic line (wireless remote control)
800w DC-AC Power Inverter
Toyota Tundra front brake Mod
Andymod 2.0 (Trac and VSC disable)
Daytime running light disable mod
LED interior lighting (dimmable)
Pioneer DVD player with screen
backup camera
PIAA H4 Bulbs
PIAA 3000k Fog lights
Rigid Ind. Backup lights
ARB Air compressor
Front and Rear lockers will be installed down the road
Heated seats
B&M Transmission Cooler
Engine block coolant heater
OTRATTW LED Rocker switches
Auxillery fuel tank (still working this one out)
Baja Racks Roof Rack

Storage system include:
40" slide out drawers 500 lbs rated
stainless steel drawer covers (use to cook on top of drawers without getting food in them)
the ability to fold down to 72" flat (rear seats removed)
the ability to install rear seats easily and keep in rear drawers (I can do this is less than ten minutes!)
the ability to have a rear "seat" in an emergency (platform folds up to make a seat in a pinch)
ability to open the rear hatch door from inside version 1.0 works decent (I will post a thread when I get version 2.0 perfected)
Carbon Monoxide detectors
Halotron Fire extinguisher


Modifications for the Espar will include a scat hose that can be connected and used to preheat his Bush plane.

More to come quickly! Here is a sneak peek!



If your interested here is my thread on my truck. Its an M1010 CUCV, an old military ambulance that I'm building into a expedition truck. http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/93775-M1010-expo-build-The-Mountain-Turtle
I do feel a little weird posting on this side of Expedition Portal, but Toyota's are pretty great!

 

[stevo-mt]

The first modification was to get this rig up in the air! 2" to be exact. Travis purchased the lift kit from Senoran Steel and it showed up complete and ready to go in the truck. I measured the truck from the concrete floor to through the center of the wheel up to the fenderwell to give reference.

The front end measured 34" from the ground stock. At the time the 4runner had 265x70xR16s on.

Stock struts vs. lifted

The front end was pretty straight forward for swapping everything out. At this time since I had the 4runner up on jack stands I decided it would be a prudent time to change out the 4runner brake calipers and rotors for some beefy Tundra brakes! This mod gives the vehicle a dramatic increase in stopping power without having to make any major modifications to the vehicle.




The front end measured 37" to the top of the fenderwell, which of course the vehicle hadn't been through a cycle of the suspension so it was not yet in its proper sag position due to the traction on the concrete. Just wanted to make sure it actually lifted...

The rear lift was a bit more involved. We installed an adjustable traction bar as well at this time as well as the extended stainless rear brake cables from the kit. It raised the rear end about 3 inches. There wasn't any weight in the back so I plan on it sagging a bit more when the weight of all the "stuff" is added.




Of course I find out you can only put 10 pics per post so this build will be in increments of 10. Linking to external pics pages never seems to work...

Overall the lift kit installation took about 10 hours to complete. It wasn't a cheap mod but it was well worth it. This 4runner drives better than most people new cars!

 

[stevo-mt]

Next mod was the automatic transmission cooler. 3rd gen 4runners have the Milkshake issue and this will hopefully prevents that. The material between the transmission cooler and the engine coolant fails and you end up getting ATF and coolant mixing making a milkshake. By adding an external cooler and eliminating the one in the radiator that should be prevented.


The nice thing about the 3rd gen 4runner is that somebody has done everything under the sun on these things. Much of the research was done on the different forums and many of these mods stems from those.

For the bumper Travis ended up buying 4xInnovations front and rear plate bumpers. The original plan was to have me fab some simple bumpers and call it a day. The day after thanksgiving sale brought these two up for a good deal to the point I couldn't build them that nice for the money!

Working on light bar placement I had cut out the bottom half of the grill.

I bolted the front bumper on and determined were I needed to weld mounting tabs on to hold the lightbar on.

The goal was to have the light bar installed hidden. At first glance you shouldn't be able to tell when it has its cover on.

Working on the rear I mounted the new bumper and cut out the Rigid Industries back up lights. I have one installed on my truck so were one works well two should be even better!



After mocking up, welding the tabs on the bumpers, and cleaning the heck out of the steel I set up a makeshift paint booth to spray the bumpers with primer. We went with a PPG epoxy primer. Some of the toughest stuff out there. And since there is a lot of salt water in Alaska hopefully it will hold up better.


And after you get all the hard work done you find a run!!!! I shouted noo!!!!! Luckily it was on the bottom so it will get scratched away eventually :elkgrin:


So this project has 40 different things simultaneously going on at once. I'm trying to keep things in chronological order as best as I remember...

About this time while watching paint dry I installed the ARB Compressor. I was always pondering were to place everything. Looking at a dozen people placement of a dozen things under the hood I came up with the most tight fitting place next to the brake master cylinder and all the ABS junk. It was a tight squeeze but it fits like a dream!




And thats ten pictures... I utilized most of the ARB air compressors wiring harness harness. It was about on par for what I planned to do anyways. I was a ways away from starting on the wiring so I just let it be so I could continue onto other aspects of the electrical system.

 

[stevo-mt]

To start out with one of the major decisions was going to be placement of the auxiliary battery. Some people put both batteries right next to each other in the drivers side front corner. This to me is not a good idea with real batteries. Probably could get away with doing something like that with a lesser battery or building super stout battery bracket, but with Odyssey they use a lot of lead so the things not light. Which is why they have such a good power density. I needed the room around the main battery anyways for things like the battery separator relay and some of the lighting relays.

I decided to spread the love and weight to the passenger side of the vehicle.

I fabbed up an auxiliary battery holder. I machined out an 1/8 of an inch out of the 3/16 inch plate so the battery sits snug and matching the profile of the battery. Then two tabs were welded on to provide additional support. Of course I would have to add some rubber matting in later to keep vibration from killing the battery.


To fit the aux battery I had to move the abs/trac/vsc relay box over. I also had to solder some additional wire onto the pressure switch on the air conditioning system. That allowed the wires to be routed around the aux battery and back into the a/c system in case any maintenance needed to be done in the future.

The battery bracket is attached in four different spots using spacers to follow the contour of the fender. That way everything is good and tight and should hold up no problem.

For battery lead everyone has their preference. I use #2 awg welding lead to go from the main battery to the separator to the aux battery. It's rated for 600V, very flexible, fine stranded, and can handle a lot of current for a sustained amount of time. All the connections are lugged with a T&B copper lug and then soldered. Then I seal them with scotch 33+ tape followed by red 35 vinyl to indicate +. This has proven to me to hold up longer than heat shrinking. It doesn't look quite as nice but it gets the job done. There are just too many variable with some of the heat shrinks. But you have to stretch electrical tape when you use it. If your just wrapping it around something your doing it wrong. It needs tension!

I wanted to have circuit protection for all of the wires leading in and out of the batteries. When I was in college I had a stereo wire rub bare on under the hood between the battery and the breaker. Luckily I was able rip off the battery terminal before it could start my car on fire more... So I always attempt to minimize the distance of an unprotected wire that can carry lots of current.

Exposed positive terminals then get rubber wrapped around them and zip tied on. T&B zip ties only...
Between the batteries I used 150 amp type 3 waterproof bussman circuit breakers. They have a button that allows you to open the circuit and isolate the battery out of the system. For the auxiliary fuse panel a 12 circuit BlueSea systems panel was chose. It has a maximum continuous amperage of 100 amps. I sized the break at 100 amps. You can go 125, but it won't ever be running that anyways...

For all of the auxiliary circuits I was originally planing to use a solid state relay to operate. The theory being that they don't draw any current when in operation. I wanted to be able to shut all of the stuff added off for when the truck would be sitting to avoid running down the aux battery. I was testing the relays. The signaling triggers were more complicated than I dared install. I was having a difficult time getting the inverter to switch using a solid state relay. There was a need to add a resister to the circuit and it wouldn't function quite right with changing loads. Plus there isn't a repair shop out there that would be able to trouble shoot it if it failed. On the other hand I could go with a traditional relay. It would allow me to switch everything on and off with the ignition switch from the key. But to utilize the power from the battery overnight a standard 100 amp relay draws a significant amount of energy. The compromise was simplistic, more rugged, and will last much longer. I decided to just use a manual battery disconnect switch. Total overkill for the 100 amp circuit, but it will last many years for this 4runner. I found a nice place under the drivers seat to mount it. The switch itself is under the vehicle and the knob to operate sticks through the carpet.



From this switch I would run wire to the fuse panel. The only problem was I did not know where I wanted to put it! I pondered over this for hours. Looking at the truck, dismantelling part of the dash. The airbags there and thinking about one accidentally going off in my face didn't make me too happy. Even with the battery disconnected. I was originally going to use a stainless steel electrical box and mount it under the hood like on my truck. But the room just does not exist in a 4runner. After mounting the ARB compressor and having to use dexterity unknown to myself prior to just to get the bolts through the holes I decided to build a fuse panel holder that would complement what was needed.

I needed a fuse panel out of the way but accessible. It had to take up very little space but route several circuits to it. Then it hit me!


The space right of the auxiliary battery was empty. The only issue with using it was the transmission dip stick. But by making the fuse panel on a hinged mounting platform I am able to open it up and check the fluid with the panel clear. This also provided an easily visible layout of all the wiring. I could train all the wiring to follow the contours of the hinge allowing it to open and close as you needed to check fuses or fluids. I utilized some of the very heavy duty hinge material I had on hand as well as some aluminum. I gave the hinge material good priming and paint to prevent rust in the future. As the wiring continued more circuits would be find its way to the fuse panel. My original plans had changed. I went back to the wiring diagram and started making some changes. Everything was becoming more simple and rugged than originally anticipated.

 

[locrwln]

Some very nice work there. I like the hinged fuse panel holder.

Jack

 

[el_topu]

Really nice so far


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[R Thomas]

Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Wildcat]

this is gonna be slick!


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[stevo-mt]

Travis and I were planning a trip to Moab. We were going to take my truck down there. About two days before we were going to leave and Travis was flying into MT I found a crack in the adaptor that goes between the transfer case and the transmission. So that put my truck on the sidelines for a while. We put a Coat of Plasti-dip on the epoxy primered bumpers and decided to take the 4runner down instead. I installed the lightbar and just used one of the rocker switches from the ARB lockers for temporary use. The air compressor was working well and setup so we would be able to lower tire pressures. Travis installed the cordura seat covers and husky floor liners. The truck was in tip top shape. It turned out to be an awesome trip and lots of fun!



We toured around on a bunch of the trails. Went out to the white wash dunes. Had some fun down in canyonlands on elephant hill. Pretty good trip. Of course we couldn't get too crazy rolling with a solo vehicle.




The baja designs light bar is pretty great. Well worth the money... Travis got that guy half off during thanksgiving week!

After that trip we put the elements for the heated seats and I began the work on the other electrical systems. I pretty much had to all of it at once.



I built the wiring harness with all the circuits that would be needed and everything for the future.

 

[stevo-mt]

I installed the espar heater in the rear next to the compartment on the side.




First step was lowering the gas tank and installing the standpipe. This tied into the fuel metering pump. I cut out the hole to allow the fuel, intake air, and exhaust from the heater to pass. I routed the intake air up above the spare tire area. Then I anchored the exhaust onto the vehicles exhaust pipe. The outlet for cabin hot air was ran through the spot were the retractable cover for the rear was. I ran the rheostat to the passenger side opposite of the heater outlet. I got everything hooked up and it worked great!

While I had everything apart in the back I wired in the backup camera.


I placed the inverter under the seat and laid out the wiring for it. From the wiring harness I ran circuits for interior LED lighting, the reverse signal for the backup camera and the inverter under the carpet.


I installed the new dvd player radio. It tied into the backup camera and works great.



I started the layout of all the different switches and installed the ScanGuage OBDII computer.

I was waiting on some more of the 3 pack switch holders at the time.

 

[Kuduhunter]

Would love to be able to do this to my 99 4Runner. Great job. Keep the details coming

 

[Expedition.Report]

Nice build so far!!!


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[PetitFrereArmada]

That is sick.

 

[stevo-mt]

As of today the only remaining items left on the vehicle, after two months of work is changing the engine oil and the front axle. All this work is kind of a recap of everything I did with the goal of maybe sharing something back after being able to use many of the forums for advice and technical knowledge. :elkgrin:

I removed the old ash tray and installed the scan gauge tool in place of it. That is a pretty nifty setup. It allows you do all sorts of calculations. MPG, Battery voltage, transmission temperatures and so on. The double din DVD player fit beautifully in the dash. I wired the backup lights and the backup camera to some double pole single throw switches. This allows the lights and backup camera to be turned on when the vehicle is placed into reverse automatically. It also gives you the option to push the switch to the other pole and turn these on independently. For example if your driving down the road and want to check on your trailer connection or your receiver hitch cargo rack you just flip the switch and it will signal the the DVD player and it will turn the screen on the camera. I placed these two switches below the old cigarette lighter auxiliary 12v outlet.

I left the 12v outlet that has the cigarette lighter in it tied to the original system that is cycled with the ignition. That is handy for your gps another devices. The other two outlets have their own fused circuit from the fuse panel under the hood. I utilized the original outlets vs adding in a BlueSea systems USB charger. I have 3 of the BlueSea usb chargers in my truck and they just don't cut it on these newer cell phones and tablets. Their output is only 2.1 amps which will barely keep my phone charged while it is providing an internet hotspot. The 12v outlet aftermarket chargers are 5 amps and much more cheaper and versatile. Also with the 12v outlets tied into the auxiliary battery you can leave your cell phone charging while away from the vehicle. Also everything has power overnight while your camping out.

I contemplated wiring the stereo so it could be played off the auxiliary battery when the vehicle was shut off. I had this option on one of my past vehicles. It was nice. But with the advent of these new USB powered Bluetooth speakers, such as the Logitech Mini-Boom, it kind of makes that unnecessary. The little speaker will play for 10 hrs and is super portable and plenty loud.





For the LED light strips I used Hitlights 5050 water-resistant white strips. They were some of the better ones I could find. They have been in use in my truck for two years now. I installed them with aluminum fixtures as well. I bent the aluminum strips to contour the rear of the 4runner. There are a few reasons to use the aluminum fixtures. They help the LED's dissipate heat and last longer, somewhat focus the light downward, but the main reason is to prevent a short circuit or melting of the plastic. It has happened to others where the LED light strip has melted something when they just self adhere the strips to plastic. For the dimmer switch I used a generic 12v LED dimmer that I have installed on my truck. Also 2 years and no issues. Plus its easy to replace. However I did wire and place the switches into the plastic that used to hold the rear cover. It is located right rear corner of the passenger side pillar. We were originally planning on operating this remotely, but with the KISS method we opted out against it. I did wire in a double pole single throw rocker switch and left the leads where they would be easily accessible for future wiring in of a wireless remote. The interior LED lighting has its own fused circuit as well. Mainly for trouble shooting aid if needed.

Another modification that I made was adding in the ability of opening the rear hatch from the inside.




I thought to myself about the dozen ways that this could be achieved. I thought of using a cable in a plastic sleeve, like a lawn mower choke cable, but opted against that due to the window getting in the way when it was rolled down. With some creative routing that might work though. I ended up drilling a hole and bending a piece of tubing to where it wrapped down around the bottom of the window (when it would be rolled down) then tying that into the latch on the bottom of the door with stainless wire. Not complicated and pretty simple. It's a little more crude than I would like but it seems to work good so why fix whats broken? You can just push the lever a bit and the door pops the lock and you push it up and can crawl out!

 

[stevo-mt]

As I was doing all the wiring I did a few mods along the way. The Andymod 2.0 was done. Pretty simple and straight forward way to disable the VSC and Trac. I will say one of the funniest things I've ever seen was when Travis was trying to spin a donut in the dry creek bed at White wash Dunes and he couldn't. The computer wouldn't let him! Watching a guy drive around in circles and seeing the frustration because his foot is floored on the gas pedal! We quickly eliminated that and put a switch on the dash to disable. The good thing about the andymod 2.0 is that you don't loose ABS. The only con is that you have to restart your vehicle to re-enable it. Not a big deal and well worth it in my opinion!



The Baja Designs light bar has a pretty neat way of allowing you to dim the light bar. Also it can strobe. A simple momentary switch connected to the signal wire and ground will allow you to dim or strobe. I placed the relays for the Light bar and the fog lights plus a spare in front of the main battery on the drivers side behind the headlight. It can be removed with a 10mm wrench and you can easily access the relays and wiring.



I wired the Light bar and fog lights into the auxiliary fuse panel. I was originally going to just use some circuit breakers right there at the location but I decided to just keep all the additional wiring circuit protection in one spot. The ARB air compressor was aslo tied into the circuit breaker. Then I added it's quick connect hose fitting.




My only two issues with the bumpers were that the rear bumper couldn't fit a spare tire bigger than stock and that the front fog light holes aren't big enough for any real fog lights. The PIAA's were just a hare to big to fit in the 4" tubeing in the bumper. I built a simple self centering bracket to align the lights with the whole. I used a small piece of channel iron then cut it so it would align the perfect height with the light. Kind of a backwards way of doing it but it was a better solution than sticking those little rigid 4x4 lights that 4xInnovations sells. (I have a set on my truck, they do decent but don't penetrate fog.) True fog lights penetrate so much better than LED lights.

I installed the winch in the bumper. It was fairly straight forward project. The bumper was designed for a warn XP9500. The Smittybuilt x20 10k winch is the same bolt pattern, but didn't quite match up with hand holes in the bumper to operate things such as the free-spool and the manual remote. I clocked the clutch for the free spool so it could be accessed from the rear and anchored the plug for the manual controls in the bumper as well. The winch will be used wirelessly operated so having the power for the winch solenoid on a safety switch was a priority. There is a rocker switch in one of the groups of three switches that serves this function. There is also an additional switch on the winches solenoid pack. For a "waterproof" winch I had to open the solenoid and seal all the little holes. If this isn't done the solenoid will corrode in about 2 years. I think that is something the company needs to fix. Albright solenoids (personal favorite) are sealed from the factory, but five minutes of work on the one that came with the winch should hold up for quite a few years. The winch won't be used an extreme amount. More or less one of those things that its there and use it if needed. Travis and I have goofy work schedules so we are both usually going crazy places solo. So we tend to be a bit semi-cautious and very well prepared.


The licence plate was going to be in the way so I had to come up with a way to be able to use the winch and not have to take the licence plate off every time. I found a piece of stainless with a hing on it. It was pretty close to the right width and after being cut to length it worked great. A little bungee will hold it down and up when the winch needs to be used. Simple tech but effective and will last a long time without salt water destroying it.



In that first picture is shows the light bar cover mod I did. I used some black textured plastic to fill in the area between the grill and the lightbar. I also added home small handles to remove the cover easier. I was planning on doing a slick operated mechanism with a heavy duty flexible cable but for how Travis plans on using the vehicle it made more sense to keep it simple and just remove the cover before use.