The Albino Rhino started life as a 1986 Toyota 4runner DLX.  It came factory equipped with a 22RE motor generating about 110 horsepower when brand new, a five speed manual transmission, a 2.28:1 hi/lo transfer case, open differentials (front 7.5″ and rear 8″ Toyota differentials with 4.10:1 gears), independent front suspension, fand a heart of gold.  When there weren’t modifications, it was a capable little truck that carried people on many happy journeys.

Sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s, the transition of the Albino Rhino from mild mannered truck to wild overlander and rock crawler began.  Based on the scant paperwork we have found, the truck began its modification journey in the central valley of California.  The independent front suspension was cut off and thrown away.  A solid front axle from a 1985 Toyota pickup was reinforced by welded trusses and was installed with front leaf spring suspension.  The rear axle was trussed and reinforced.  Long travel springs were installed in the rear.  Front and rear ARB air lockers and 5.29:1 gears were installed in twin Toyota 8″ differentials.  A second transfer case was fitted behind the first to allow for low-low range.  35″ tires were fitted on the wheels lifting the truck high into the air.  Sliders and tube bumpers were welded to the frame.

The Albino Rhino found its way to Colorado in sometime before 2015 where a friend of ours bought the truck and added it to the fleet of Toyota 4x4s associated with the Rising Sun 4×4 Club.  When a pretty little 80 Series Land Cruiser showed up on a local classified ad, our friend put the Albino Rhino up for sale and we purchased it.

Since the Albino Rhino came home to live with us, we have undertaken a significant overhaul and updating program as well as adding key pieces of equipment for long-term overlanding.  Between 4×4 forays across the American west, we continue to overhaul the Albino Rhino so that our wonderful truck may continue to carry us on many more years of adventures.

Current Technical Specifications:

Engine:

Toyota 22RE potentially with an RV cam (it acts like it has one but we haven’t disassembled the engine enough to find out).  The timing chain retains plastic chain guides.  We have replaced all of the coolant hoses, the radiator with an all metal three core radiator usually used in turbocharged Toyotas of this era, the entire ignition system including the coil and igniter module (twice!).

The engine uses “bomb-proof” motor mounts that in effect hard mount the engine to the frame.  This works well with the dual transfer cases but makes for a lot of vibrations that can be fatiguing on long drives.

An upgraded Chevy-style PowerMaster alternator was fitted onto the engine to provide 170 amps of power at full output.  A slightly longer alternator belt was needed to make everything fit.  We still carry the original alternator and spare belts in case of malfunction but so far, our upgraded alternator has been a rockstar.

Drivetrain:

Immediately behind the engine sits the original transmission that came brand new with the truck.  Five forward gears and one reverse gear see us down the road.  We have replaced the plastic tip at the end of the shift stick and the plastic cup that the shift stick ball rides in.  Someone replaced the shifting knob with a grimey piece of rubber that we will eventually replace with something better.  The clutch master and slave cylinders have booth been replaced recently.  However, the clutch is many years old and still going strong.

Immediately behind the transmission sits dual transfer cases.  We use a Marlin Crawler adapter to marry the two cases together.  The front case retains the 2.28:1 transfer gears while the rear transfer case has 4.70:1 gears for ultra low range.  We installed heavy-duty springs in both transfer cases to make sure the shifters don’t pop out while we are rock crawling.  The rear case has modifications to divorce the hi-lo range selector and the 2WD/4WD selector.  We have decided to retain the 21 spline setup throughout the transmission and transfer case for now but may upgrade to 23 splines in the future.  The dual transfer cases are mounted with heavy duty mounts to a large crossmember and skid plate.

The front drive shaft (also known as a “propellor shaft” in the lingo of Toyota) has been lengthened and the joints have  modifications to accept the wide range of angles that can exist between the transfer case output flange and the front differential input flange.  The rear drive shaft has been lengthened and a double CV joint has been added for the extreme flex and twist that the rear axle can undergo.  We replaced both drive shafts during the time we have owned the Albino Rhino.

Both the front and rear differentials are running 5.29:1 gears and ARB air lockers.  The gearing allows us to comfortably run 35″ tires on the highway and the trail.  The ARB air lockers make the truck fully lockable so that all four wheels rotate at the same speed in extreme conditions.  We very rarely use the front locker (the rear is usually all that we need if the going gets tough) bit it is very nice to have in sticky situations.  The rear differential is inside of a Toyota V6 housing while the front is in a standard V4 housing.  Someday we may upgrade to a high pinion front housing from an 80 series Land Cruiser to give more clearance.

Both axles have been trussed and reinforced.  Gussets have been applied at the usual places making our axles very strong indeed.

The front axle has wheel spacers to stretch it out to the same length as our 1986 rear axle (the 1985 and earlier front and rear axles were a few inches narrower than the 1986 and later rear axles).  We have heavy duty birfields inside the axle.  Brake rotors were retained from the 1986 independent front suspension and V6 calipers have been installed.  A V4 brake master cylinder remains in the truck which eventually will be upgraded to a V6 master cylinder.  We continue to use the original Asin locking hubs which have proven to be more than robust.

The rear axle has a full floater kit installed from Front Range Off Road that allows us to quickly change axle bearings in the field and is fully interchangeable with parts from the front axle (plus offload some of the load from the differential onto the twin bearings).  After we had a major bearing failure on our old captive bearing rear axle setup, we decided to change out to the full floater kit.  As a result, the OEM axle half shafts have been replaced with custom axle half shafts and drive flanges.  We for a time ran Asin locking hubs on our rear axle but we found some issues with the setup which forced us to replace the rear axle half shafts and discontinue use of the Asin locking hubs.  Pro-tip: don’t use drive shaft flanges from the front axle of an 80 series Land Cruiser!

Another benefit of the full floater kit on our rear axle is that we now have disk brakes on our rear axle.  One drawback of the particular kit (an older design) we used is that we lost the e-brake.  To rectify this issue, we installed a drive shaft e-brake.  The drive shaft e-brake works okay but someday we’ll upgrade to a newer full floater kit that uses more modern brake components including an integrated e-brake.

Of particular note is the manual proportioning valve that we swapped in place of the load sensing proportioning valve.  While the LSPV had been setup for the long travel and raised suspension, it would not work with the rear disk brakes.  We do have to watch the adjustment on the manual proportioning valve but it works well for us.

Suspension and Steering:

The truck rides on leaf springs both front and rear.  The front set of leaf springs is All Pro brand.  We will upgraded the rear leafs from an old worn out set of All Pros to to Chevy 63″ springs. Unfortunately we’re running 3.5″ lift blocks on the rear axle to get the truck level which isn’t great. In the future we probably will upgrade to Alcan Orbit Eye springs.  Bilstein shocks finish up the suspension.

We have a hi-steer setup on our steering that includes six shooter steering arms and heavy duty tie rods and 80 Series Land Cruiser tie rod ends.  The independent front suspension steering box has been rebuilt at least twice (both while we have owned the truck).  Our steering setup needs periodic adjustment as the tires wear and the steering box wears. We’ve had the steering box rebuilt once and replaced once.  However, it is a robust setup.

Protection, Armor, and Bumpers:

On the front end, we have a custom made tube bumper welded to the frame.  The stinger sticks up high enough that it gave us the idea for the name of our beloved truck.  We modified the bumper from what a previous owner had built to be setup for a winch.  A 12,000 lbs winch is installed and wired into the truck as a backup plan in case we get into a sticky situation.

The rear bumper started its life out as a generic tube bumper bought from one of several potential suppliers.  Whoever originally welded up the bumper and whoever attached the bumper to the truck might not recognize it now.  We added a rear swing-out tire carrier to mount our 35″ spare tire and two five gallon jerry cans for extra gas on extended trips.

The door sills and bodywork of the truck is protected by sliders welded directly to the frame.  We can effectively pivot around rocks and scrape over top of ledges with our very solid sliders.

Our axles also have differential cover armor welded directly to them.  This helps to protect against big hits on the trail.

Lighting:

After being caught out after dark a few times with just the stock sealed rectangular bulb headlights, we’ve done a few upgrades to our truck.  Our headlights are now Hella 4H housings with high intensity incandescent bulbs.  Someday we may upgrade to LED headlights but for now, we are happy with this headlight configuration as it keeps snow from building up on the lenses (something LEDs would not do).

We also have a large quantity of LED auxiliary lights all over the truck.  It turns out that Amazon has some really good deals on reasonably reliable LED light bars, flood lights, and driving lights.  We have lights just about everywhere on the truck and often get made fun of until people see us in action at night.  Between our rooftop light bar and all of the other LEDs under the truck (rock lights) and on the truck (rear lights, pool lights, front flood and spot lights), we can light up the night just like day.

An important note in our light setup is the up-rated Chevy-style alternator that we installed.  We can pump out about 170 amps at maximum output.  Based on our calculations, our LEDs consume upwards of 100 amps when everything is turned on.  As we said, our lighting setup turns darkness into light!

Communications Equipment:

The Albino Rhino carries a variety of communications equipment including radios and a satellite transponder.  We operate on the 2M (VHF) amateur radio band and often monitor 146.460 when on the trail.  Our CB radio allows us to talk with folks who haven’t switched over to HAM radio yet.  We also often carry FRS radios to use when spotting through tricky obstacles or when we go wheeling with someone who doesn’t have a radio.

Another thing that we carry is a Garmin InReach Explorer satellite transponder. (You can read our full review and field test of the Garmin InReach Explorer here.)  We have found it to be very useful to have true global two-way communications.  We can update people of our plans as they change when we’re out of cell service.  We can contact emergency services when we’re far off the grid.  We can be contacted by our family and friends if urgent business comes up and we aren’t reachable any other way.  Perhaps of greatest value to us is the ability for our family and friends to identify where we are at any given time in case we go missing and they can’t communicate with us.  It’s good peace of mind to carry a satellite transponder.

Fender Flares and Mud Flaps:

We DIYed some fender flares and mud flaps for our truck to make it street legal across the west.  Outside of Colorado, you have to have fender flares and mud flaps in most other states.  A few sheets of UHMW and some home-made hangers, and we are now fully street legal.  Details of our fender flares can be found here.

Cargo Storage:

Hopefully we’ll have more to say about cargo storage than using some tupperware containers in the near future.  There are many modifications we want to do here.  Stay tuned!