I took the 4runner out for a spin today. From Idaho Springs, I took Oh My God Road up to Central City and then around through Central City to Nevadaville.
The continental divide was sparkly and white today.
Beautiful day today.
Going down Hamlin Gulch Road. It got a little tippy at one point. A Grand Cherokee with a bunch of kids were coming up in that section. They were trying pretty hard to roll the thing down the hill. Hopefully they made it up the hill without incident…
Down the trail toward Fall River Road.
I went up Rainbow Road following a Wrangler. We only made it three or four miles before the snow became too deep.
Heading back down Rainbow Road.
I think that’s Parry Peak. Looking back up Rainbow Road.
Out on Forest Road 175 before it turns into Yankee Hill Road.
Side spur off of Forest Road 175.
Up at the top of a hill. That’s Mount Evans in the distance.
On Yankee Hill Road. Way out in the distance is Denver. Yankee Hill Road became impassable toward the summit due to snow. Maybe in another few weeks the road will be open all the way over to Saint Mary’s Glacier.
I did some work over the long weekend on my 1st generation 4runner. One thing I noticed while crawling around underneath the truck is that I appear to have a leak coming from the rear seal on my transfer case. That should probably be fixed at some point… Although I’m thinking of putting a Marlin Crawler Box into the truck. I’ll probably just monitor the fluid level and let it continue to slowly leak.
In the truck I decided to mount a CB radio into the DIN spot below the head unit. The previous owner put in the existing head unit. I went with a CB radio that has a SWR meter built in and a weather radio function.
It looks clean installed in the truck. The mic cable does interact with the shifter a little bit but not enough to cause a problem. At some point I might get a 90 degree connector to move the cable out of the way.
While I was at it, I lengthened the harness for the ECU to be able to locate the ECU in the glove box. A little extra height isn’t a bad thing with critical electrical components.
ECU snugly in the glovebox.
I dismantled the dash to run wires and search for the wire that carries tachometer signals from the ignition control module up into the dash. While my truck is a DLX model, the tacho sensor wire was still in the wiring loom. Many people replace the DLX gauge cluster with an SR5 cluster (be sure to replace the oil pressure switch with an oil pressure sensor if you do this!). I decided to keep the stock DLX cluster and instead install a little aftermarket tachometer.
I removed the valence cover over the windshield wiper mechanism and cabin air intake to search for a possible route for cables to/from the engine bay. There aren’t any spare grommets in the firewall on my truck. I finally settled on drilling through a couple pieces of sheet metal to make a large diameter route to pump all of my cables through.
I did some creative rewiring of my harness to get the tachometer signal (green wire).
A hole through the firewall from just above the brake booster and clutch master cylinder into the empty space behind.
Some pipe temporarily fit into the hole to check for fitment.
I drilled a hole straight down into the driver footwell.
Looking through to the footwell.
I found a 2″ PVC 90 degree bend at the local home improvement store. I used RTV to thoroughly seal it onto the metal. This hopefully will keep water off of my feet.
Looking at the 90 degree bend through the hole in the firewall.
While I had the dash apart, I put in a voltmeter in a blank space left of the steering wheel.
Lots of wiring!
This is probably every electrical engineer’s worst nightmare: allowing a mechanical engineer to touch electrical things.
Everything on the dash installed. Tachometer in the upper left. Voltmeter in the lower center left. Switches to control an auxiliary fuse panel in the lower right.
A mockup of the five foot tall Firestik CB antenna that I will be mounting to the tube bumper that is on order.
I was left over with a few spare parts when I reassembled the dash. Most of the parts come from relocating the ECU. A few screws came from not rescrewing a few bits of the dash to make for easier removal the next time I need to get into it.
It looks pretty good! There is still room for a RAM mount or two in order to have a Baofeng handheld radio attached to an external radio (2M/70cm capable) for communicating with others on the trail and hitting local repeaters. I also plan to have another RAM mount to hold a tablet for on-the-trail mapping functions and maybe APRS in the future. Also in the works is a 10 meter radio that will sit probably in the left side passenger footwell.
Another view complete with air freshener that the previous owner had left (unopened) in the glovebox.
Today I took my new-to-me 1988 Toyota 4runner DLX up to Dumont, Colorado to meet up with Dan from the Rising Sun 4×4 Club to do a little 4x4ing and compare between my integrated front suspension and his solid front axle. This was my first time driving my 4runner on anything more than a gravel road or pavement. Huge thanks to Dan for taking me out and showing me the ropes.
We headed up the north side of the canyon to check out the 4×4 trails.
Dan took the lead in his 1985 4runner.
I gingerly followed behind. If it weren’t for Dan leading, I would not have thought that my 4runner could go over some of the terrain we did today. Especially since both of our 4runners are basically stock.
It looks much more mild in the photos than it felt when we were driving over everything.
We took a wrong turn onto a tight trail. This was probably a quad trail rather than a 4×4 jeep trail. Whoops! Good thing our 4runners are small vehicles and can squeeze through tight spaces.
It got a wee bit tight.
Back on the main road heading up the hill.
Looking out at all of the tailing piles across the hills. There was some snow/rain/mist falling a bit further to the west.
We walked down to an abandoned mine site. This area is full of old collapsed mine shafts and adits. Lots of equipment is scattered all over the place
The old compressor building was still partially standing.
Neat old compressor engine.
The old compressor tank.
This must have been the Big Horn Mine.
There’s an aspen tree growing through the roof of the compressor building.
Back on the trail. We went through a creek. My first water crossing in my 4runner! So exciting! (Even if it was only a couple inches deep)
And then Dan got stuck. Crossing over an area where a deeply rutted trail intersects two other trails, Dan took a fun line that ended up with his wheels spinning. He could have chosen a much easier line (that I later took uneventfully) but this path was way more fun.
A couple families in Cherokees came over to watch Dan and me try to shove rocks under Dan’s tires.
We ended up using the hi-lift jack that I had brought along to pick up the various corners of Dan’s 4runner to stuff rocks underneath. I’ve had that Hi-lift jack since the mid 2000s when someone in the mechanical engineering program at Oregon State University left it behind after a class project. The jack amazingly functioned fairly well.
Dan gets to get his wife a new bumper for her 4runner (he was borrowing her 4runner). I’m pretty sure this is a good thing 🙂 It’s a good excuse to make a nice sturdy tube bumper!
It took a little bit of effort but Dan got out of the hole.
Our two 4runners on the other side all safe and sound! We spent a little time practicing hi-lift jacking techniques since I had never done it before. During this time, the jack stopped functioning properly (it locked in place and wouldn’t move). I need to disassemble the jack, clean it out, and make sure that everything is as it should be before the next time I go 4x4ing.
Heading down the trail back toward Dumont.
On this section I couldn’t figure out why I was being bounced around so much compared to Dan. I figured it must be because he has a solid front axle while I have IFS. Nope. Turns out that I had the truck in 2nd gear by mistake. It’s MUCH easier to go down something like this in 1st gear and 4×4 low than 2nd gear 4×4 low. Whoops!
Sun’s out, top’s down!
This is such a gorgeous area.
After we got down off the hill, we went down to Idaho Springs for lunch and to review what I learned about solid front axles versus integrated front suspension. I’m pretty sold on getting a solid front axle someday. For now though the IFS will be just fine to get me through a fun summer of wheeling. I already have sliders, tube doors, and a tube front bumper with winch mounting point on order. Next will be a winch and dual batteries for the truck.
Thanks a bunch for all the pointers today, Dan! I’m really looking forward to the next time out on the trail.
Back home after a great day out on the trails.
