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"Wheelskin's steering wheel covers"
Here are a couple of shots of
my
Eurotone Wheel Skin's steering
wheel cover.
The instructions said it would
take about an hour and a half to lace up, they were right.
This is a must have, it sure
feels nice.
I ordered it through Auto
Seattle.
The Eurotone is a two tone cover.
Mine is black on the sides, and blue on the top and bottom.
My kit has the red anodized ends,
but they are available in several colors.
The part # from JC Whitney is
83ZX0813W.
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Update 4/17/2002:
I am now the proud owner of
a genuine 2nd gen inclinometer that was available only on the overseas
4Runners.
JD ran across this at a wrecking
yard in Australia, and shipped it to me.
It is just like the ones that
came in some of the 1st gens, but shaped to fit the dash of the 2nd gens.
It was gray, so I bought some
paint from this auto motive paint supply store.
It's a special paint meant for
flexible and rigid plastic, carpet, vinyl, and velour.
It's called Color Coat Flexible
Coating, and made by SEM.
Very easy to work with, and
dries in minutes.
I am going to have to modify
the base a bit to fit correctly, and I may end up repainting it again as
it is a little too light for my interior, and I think it will look better
darker.
I will update this page here
with some better pics once the unit is fully installed.
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Update 4/24/2002
That didn't take too long now
did it?
My clinometer has gone through
quite the metamorphosis.
I dropped it off at a stereo
shop where the installer does "odd ball" stuff sometimes.
He sawed off the high angles
on the face plate and made a custom base and attached it to the bottom
of the unit.
He also pointed out to me that
the blue paint I put on it was kind of reflective and it might shine in
my eyes.
He had some material laying
around and he sprayed some glue on the unit, and then stretched the material
over it.
It turned out really good.
He left a skirt of it around
the base, but I am going to end up gluing it up underneath the unit.
He ran the wiring for it down
through the wind shield defroster vent and tapped into some wiring under
the dash.
It lights up at night too and
looks pretty cool.
And yes, those are Wet Okole
seat covers.
Page IV of the mods section
goes into detail on them.
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You can order these online from
a
few places.
CTB & Cebby from YotaTech
were kind enough to get me the parts #s for these.
The # is Energy Suspension Part
# 9.9102R for the red ones, and 9.9102G for the black ones.
The height is 11/16" x 2" diameter
for the snubber.
More info can be found on page
3 of ES's site.
From Summit Racing's site.
This should help with the articulation while out on the trails.
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Here is a shot from the rear.
Notice the wire loom around
the wires,
this cleans up the install quite
a bit
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I had this bar fabbed up by a
local welding shop that specializes in roll cages for race cars.
They do quite a bit of tube
bending, and other stuff. He even makes nerfs that can be welded onto the
frame, or with attachments that will allow you to pull a few bolts, and
slide them out. I almost had a set made up, but ended up going with the
Smitty's.
The shop that made the bar even recommended a local powder coating place, and I had them paint it the same color as the Shittybilt nerfs.
This tank is not moving with this setup. It's nice and strong, and it bolts through the fender well, and back quarter panel with stainless steel bolts.
My youngest son took this video
of me taking off my regular tires & wheels, and switching over to my
winter rims & tires.
You can see that there are many
uses to the Power Tank besides airing up after a wheelin' trip.
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To see some more ideas on how to mount the Power Tank in your own rig, click here for Power Tanks mounting ideas.
For a real good review on the Power Tank, see the article on Rock Crawler's forum & Tech site.
I now have my running boards
off as when you put on flares, you have to
take off the end caps from the
boards, as well as the nice Toyota rear mud flaps.
Stay tuned for a mud flap mod,
and some custom made rock slider/nerfs.
The part #'s for these from
Central 4WD is:
LTD 3101701 $117.39 for the
two fronts,
&
LTD 3101801 $125.15 for
the two rears.
These are a universal set. The
fronts will fit a '90 to '95 4Runner, and a '89 to '95 4WD truck.
The rears are for the 4Runner
only. These are in shiny black.
For a complete set of 4 in a
textured finnish, the part # is:
31907-11 That is Downey's part
# for the set of 4.
Installing them was not hard
at all. We took off each wheel one at a time. Then we held the flare in
place and taped it to the fender well.
Once it was taped in place,
I pushed on it to hold it in place while my brother in-law drilled the
holes.
The flares have nubs on them
where you put the drill bit to drill
These are really easy with two
people doing it, and I don't think it took us over two hours to do all
four of them.
The install kit comes with a
lot of extra self tapping sheet metal screws in case you want to use more.
About the hardest part is the
pre-install. You have to put on the flare gasket on the flares. It uses
3M sticky tape, and just takes awhile to put on.
You can do that easily sitting in front of the tube watching the 5 PM news.
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Update 5/6/2002:
The Smitt's have been yanked
off and real sliderz have been welded on.
See page IV of this section
for details.
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Like wow man, look what a little
bit of paint can do! I painted it July 3rd, 2001.
Same paint as I used on my Aisin
hubs. Rustoleum Hardhat brand. Very good stuff. Painted the main shackle
red, and the insert itself gloss black. All parts also received two coats
of clear.
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This is a very easy mod to do,
and well worth it if you plan on going through any water.
Part #'s for the Toyota breather
is 90404-51319. You can also use a small filter from Toyota. Part # is
90930-03136.
I elected to use instead a Fram
gas filter. Part # G3.
I'll put up a pic of the front
breather after I do it. Yes, I only have done the rear one so far.
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The rear flaps were a different story. One hole on the flap you can use as shown in the JPG, and a new hole had to be made 1" higher and outward to utilize a hole that's pre drilled in the fender. Also a new hole had to be drilled in the flap, and the fender itself to anchor it down good. I also used 3 self tapping screws to anchor the side of the flap down to the Bushwacker fender flare to make it more sturdy.
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These flaps were not cheap! They
are genuine Toyota truck flaps, and cost a lot, but I think the end result
was worth it.
The part #'s for the flaps are
as follows:
left front 76622-39156
right front 76621-39156
left rear 76608-39025
right rear 76607-39025
With manual hubs granted you have to get out and turn them to "lock" in order to use 4WD, but the added benefit is all the 4WD stuff up front is not always turning like the ADD setup.
Since converting over to manual hubs, I have noticed an increase in low end torque. Not a whole lot, but enough that it's noticeable when merging onto the freeway.
Here's the main benefits of manual
hubs:
1. decrease in wear and tear
on the front 4WD assembly.
2. A tad bit more power, not
much.
3. A slight increase in gas
mileage.
I followed Little Joe's
rebuild
article on doing the rebuild myself. Very easy to do, and I also repainted
them with 3 coats each of red and black paint, and 3 coats of clear paint.
The paint I used was Rust-Oleum Hardhat Enamel.
After the paint was dry, I reassembled
them and used Amsoil heavy duty grease.
This mod is worth it if you have
the ADD setup on your Toyota now.
Here are some additional articles
on Toyota hubs and the ADD system.
http://www.off-road.com/toyota/tech/add/index.htm
http://www.cascadecrawlers.com/toyota/hubrebuild/index.html
http://www.off-road.com/toyota/tech/aisin/
http://www.outdoorwire.com/content/4x4/toyota/tech/add/index.htm?
http://www.outdoorwire.com/4x4/toyota/maintenance/front_end/hub_rebuild/
Here's a before and after look. What a difference new paint can make!
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Here's one disassembled and getting greased.
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Here's the finished hub sittin' pretty on my 4Runner.
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You will need a total of 4 gaskets
to complete the rebuild. 2 for each hub.
The parts #'s from Toyota are
43531-60010 Free Wheel
and 43422-60010 FR Axle outer
hub.
UPDATE:
I learned cool idea from YotaTech forum member 4x4CPOSEADOG if you need new
bolts that bolt the outer ring to the hub casing.
To get the bolts at the dealer is very expensive, and they are not as nice as
the stainless steel ones available at Lowe's and other hardware stores.
The factory bolts with the #7 inscribed on them are not stainless steel and will
get fugly after awhile.
I will use his words from a thread on YotaTech he was in:
"M6-1.0x16MM Stainless Steel bolts can be acquired from Lowe's- these bolts hold the cover in place to mate with the hub body.
There are 5 bolts in each packet and the price per packet is just 67 cents .
This is way cheaper than buying the stock bolts for 88 cents per bolt.
#12 Washers- Stainless Steel washers that match with M6-1.0x16MM bolts also available at Lowe's.
57 cents per packet with 5 washers. "