Project 4Skinner: Unclean, uncut, unkosher and unashamed

[Turboyota]

1988 Toyota 4Runner

22RE & Manual Trans

Straight body panels: hood, tailgate & shell

Straight frame rail sections: not the front

Purchase Price: $4000

@FatJeff has been hearing about my trucks, truck shit I build for friends, and my dezert trips for years. He’s never ridden in a capable prerunner or even a slightly modified dezert truck. He knows absolutely fucking nothing about prerunners or the go-fast desert aftermarket.

FatJeff recounts the beginning:

“So I was being fat and drunk while searching for 4runners on Craigslist. Saw one I thought looked white trashy enough for my pathetic trophy case. The one I saw looked like a charcoal Michael Jackson during the onset of vitiligo and subsequent bleaching process and I said, “man, if I found one like that on my street I would buy it.” I thought this because I was too lazy and drunk to put more than 5 minutes into physically searching for a nice specimen. As fate would have it, 1 week later the same blotchy toned 4Skinner I had dreamed of was found parked at the end of my street. Without hesitation, or looking to see how bent up the frame was, I called and a deal was negotiated. I felt like I overpaid a little, until I found the 20ga unspent shells safely stored in the bottom of the quarter panel. After showing off my treasure to Turboyota, I was convinced I needed to throw offensive amounts of money into deciding if I was interested in a new hobby. The rest is just a fat drunk guy relying completely on his friend to do absolutely everything to make this vehicle what it is today.”





He showed up at my house and surprised me with his new toy.



Me: “Dude this thing is fucking sweet! I love 1st gen 4Runners!”

Jeff: “It runs good and has a new radiator and battery.”

Me: “Looks like it has some shit botched onto the front that was used for flat towing.”

Jeff: “Owner didn’t know shit about that”

Me: “it’s got Trail Gear Diff Armor welded to the rearend—does it have a locker?

Jeff: “No fucking clue.”

Me: “Alright. Are you gonna pound this fucker through the desert with me or what?”

Jeff: “Yeah that sounds fun.”

Me: “Okay want me to see if I can find parts for it?

Jeff: “Yeah”

Me: “Fuckin-A. I’ll ask the dezertrangers bros what parts they have laying around.”



So it begins

 

[Turboyota]

January 2021
————————

I posted a WANTED ad on DezertRangers and started perusing RDC Classifieds and OfferUp.

Sourced Deaver F67’s, Total Chaos 12” shackles and u-bolt plates from RDC for $600

RuffStuff front spring hangers: $26

Fox 2x4” bumps from dzrtranger: $250

2.5x12” Sway-A-Way Racerunner threaded body shocks from whitetrashkyle: $450

hoses with 90deg ends for rear sway-a-ways: $47

RuffStuff lower shock mounts: $20

Total Chaos balljoint Long travel kit from @Do Dah with T100 axles & Sway-A-Way Torsions: $800

King 2.5x8” Triple Bypass shocks from offer up: $1050

LC Engineering stainless braided brake lines: $100

Total Chaos Shock hoop setup: $358

Hanneman Ivan front fiberglass from @Mullen $200

New Moog balljoints, tierods, pitman arm, idler arm, wheel bearings, and spares of everything: $600

Trail Gear Bomb proof motor mount bushings and bomb proof transfer case mount: $130

If you recall in post#1, I commented on the bullshit cobbled into the front frame possibly for flat towing… stock front crossmember was gone, frame was tweaked, and the new front crossmember was 1/4”x2” flat strap. See below:


Exhaust delete to facility all the up travels:


Mounted the Deavers via positioning under the stock leaves. It worked great. Don’t mind the leaf spacer on the wrong side of the main leaf….

 

[Turboyota]

Leaf spring mounting with muffstuff forward pivots.

Fender trimming to clear the massive 31” tires


Attached the 12” shackle to the stock location. Stock rear upper shackle pivot was pretty close to the 52.5” magic Helton number

Marked the proposed cut with vinyl tape


Started cutting. Fuck it.


Cut off the stock bumpstop pads and set full bump when the 31” tire hits the stock inner fenderwell. How fortuitous! That up travel location is exactly where the stock e-brake cable is starting to kiss the frame

 

[Turboyota]

January 23, 2021

Mocked up 2.5x12” Swayaway shocks and 2x4” Fox bumpstops.

14” travel.

“That shock angle is never gonna work”
“Dude, bro, that’s falling rate”
Me: “fuck you”


Bumpstop and 3/8” thick bump strike pad getting mocked up. E-brake cable can be seen just kissing the frame at full bump


Bumps peekaboo into the cab ever-so-slightly. Fucking @FatJeff has tried to seal the bumpstop to cab floor with 69 different construction sealants and adhesives to no avail. Fucking contractors… fuck.


Bump can gussets tacked in:


Little bandsaw tuneup on the ruffmuff shock tabs:


Upper shock mount tube barely fits between floor and frame rail. It’s welded to the factory spare tire crossmember. Looking from the drivers side wheel well:


1.5x0.120” 4130 shock mount tube is just forward of the tire crossmember.
Drivers side is on the right—>

 

[Turboyota]

Shock mount gussets:



Machining urethane bushings for upper shackle pivots:


3/4x0.120” 4130 inner sleeves bored out to 9/16” for the shackle bolts


Passenger side shock mounts


More .125” hot rolled & cooled rolled plate custom shock mount gussets


TIG welded those magnificent bastards


Gave the lower side a little tap tap tappy and a tap tap tap-a-roo around the bottom of the frame, then finished tigging them in.


MiG blasted the less aesthetic items. Upper shock tabs:


Lower ruffstuff shock tabs:



Yes, I know the leaf spring spacer is still on the wrong side of the main leaf

 

[Turboyota]

Shock valving!

Replaced decades-old SAW hoses with 90deg freshies. I think Inwent to Hose Man or Hose Mart??


Tucked into the stock spare tire crossmember :


Rebound: vanilla 10 stack


Compression stack:

1 free bleed open

Piston
0.012 cover shim
0.015
0.015
0.015
0.015
0.012” x 0.900
0.012” x 0.900
^^^0.084” compression stack flex before cover shim hits flexy rate plate

Flexy rate plate:
0.012”
0.015”
0.015”

0.030” x 0.900” spacer
0.030” x 0.900” spacer

Solid rate plate

 

[FasterNU]

i would think that's too mushy? .084" before you even hit the flexy plate seems like a lot....

and those pistons look a lot different than the SAW's I have always seen. Wonder how they flow...

 

[BlackJacket705]

Damn I want a 1gen 4runner. Too bad the all rotted and blew away in the wind by 96 up here where I'm from.

 

[Turboyota]

Raising rear fender line or tubbing or fender clearance? Fucking whatever.
1. Cut the shit so it looks nice and is close to stock~ish body lines whilst maximizing bump travel. Maintained most of the stock inner fenderwell.
2. Make RAMboard templates
3. Copy in 0.050” steel sheet
4. Form steel to inner shape by hand bending and forming around a gas cylinder.
5. Lots of mig tacks spreading the heat around to limit warpage.

Ran out of MIG steel mix and rigged the passenger side with silicon bronze. I warped it and anded up cutting out a bunch of the welds to remedy my incompetence.

Here’s some pics with super shitty lighting.



Fully MIG welded and welds fluffed out:


Made a template from the drivers side to mirror the cut lines to the passenger side.


Started TIG tacking. It was going fine…


Until I fucking warped then fuck out of it and cut out and redid like 30%. On the plus side, it took 69% longer for a slightly shittier result.


Upskirt


Fuck yeah! Looks like a total sleeper!!


Tested flexification in my yard

 

[Turboyota]

February 21, 2021

Calimesa hills prerun grounds.

I flogged the fuck out of it, and to answer @FasterNU ’s shock valving question from above, the valving was fucking awesome. Driving the truck as hard as I possibly could with a tired 22RE and bone stock front end, I used less than half the rear bumpstop travel.

Screen grabs from video courtesy @h0runner




@h0runner looking sexy as fuck!


I dont make the trucks looks nearly as good as horunner



Just the tip on the passenger side


Got it halfway in on my side… yes I’m fucking fat…

 

[Pictafiedesign]

Pure gold.

 

[turbomonty]

 

[Turboyota]

February 26, 2021

After being completely stoked with the performance of the rear of the truck, I moved onto the front!

Ripped this shit off:


The loudest and fastest way to cut shit off:


Freshly shorn:

 

[Turboyota]

February 27, 2021

Remember how fucked-out the front frame was?

Body mount is tweaked and frame had a wicked twist on the passenger side:


Driver side is fine, but that steel abortion welded onto the frame rails has got to go…



Notice the cut between the steering damper mounts and the suspension pivot points and motor mount:


Fuck yeah! Tweak that bitch back into place!


Peep the fucking pipe wrench hahahaha


And the rusty tube shoved into the botched abortion welded onto the bottom of the frame rail. Just forward of the suspension pivot, the oval-shaped hole is evidence of how fucked the frame WAS.


Aborted the abortions. That was a fuckload of work and cutoff wheels.


Aborted the abortion! Maybe this would be a good place for a circumcision joke? Probably not considering the thread title…


Checking frame height vs suspension pivot axis side-to-side. Got it within 1/16” and called it good enough.