The Tale of Terra - my buildthread

2000 XE 3.3L 4x4; sport and utility packages
Purchased: September 1999









Modifications

Performance:
K&N CAI w/ drycharger prefilter - cannibalized and wedded to kn&n Apollo to navara snorkel
Gibson Catback - replaced w/flowmaster super 44 oct '12
Doug Thorley long tube headers w/CELs
Resonator delete
SC Radiator swap
NGK iridium plugs
Seafoam
Royal Purple 5-30w
Amsoil Severe Gear front and rear diff
Amsoil manual gear oil
Amsoil ATF transfer case

Interior:
Cobra 75 WXT CB
Clarion double DIN head unit w/bluetooth and USB iPod interface
Corbeau XRS baja front seats
OEM neoprene covers rear
Hockey stick/duct tape fly rod rack

Tools/Recovery Gear:
Powertank
Impact wrench
Air wratchet
misc wrenches and sockets
Smittybuilt strap
Bubba Rope
Shovel
HiLift Jack
Fire extinguisher
First aid kit
Fiskars hatchet
Machete

Suspension/Steering:
AC 3" SL
- UCAs, Sway-away HD torsion bars, three-leaf AAL, Bilsteins
1" BL
Total chaos steering system (centerlink, pitman arm, IA and heim joints)
Rear sway bar delete
Energy Suspension front sway bar rehab kit

Exterior:
295-70-17 trail grapplers
Eagle Alloy series 063 (4.47" backset)
warn manual locking hubs
sliders by KUMA
fender cutting/trimming
custom tube pre-runner bumper
light truss-clamp roof-rail hilift jack mount (Drake mount)
quickfist shovel mount
fold-down CB antenna
PIAA plasma ion fogs
Skid row skids - full coverage
Custom tube rear bumper
Swing-away spare tire mount
B&M Lightbars light basket
4" PIAA superwhites

Drivetrain:
ARB Rear locker, actuated by Powertank
Tx-10 transfer case with calmini crawler gears (not yet installed)


Eventually:
cargo tool box
SAS
flux capacitor

The Narrative:

So here's the story of Terra, my 2000 XE I bought brand new back in September of 1999:

Terra replaced my modded 87 4runner, totalled by a drunk driver. Currently, she is approaching 170k miles, and over the course of her life has been daily driven by first me, then my daughter, then my son, and then back to me a couple of years ago. That's when the mod bug bit. I don't have any old stock pics handy, but here's what she looked like when the only things I had done were bedliner on the wheels, step rails and roof rack, and a K&N cold air intake (before I knew better, I have since added a drycharger pre-filter to prevent dust, mud and water incursion, which might very well reduce the benefits of clean air intake, I'm not sure):



Earlier this year, a buddy and I headed North to go fly fishing on the Chama River in northern NM. There is a dirt road north of Cuba, NM, which is normally no big deal but a Class A bee-yatch if it's been raining. It had been raining. I knew from prior experience in both the 4-runner and Terra in her younger days it was going to be hair-raising but do-able. Long story short, it was a bad time to find out my POS automatic hubs were fried. No 4wd.
:traurig-big:
Took us four hours to get out, after airing down and working our asses off.



Did I mention I had put a crappy safari bar on to hold my hellas? That was before I discovered it's stupid. More on that later...

An aside, we didn't get to our destination, but did manage to hit a stream in the Jemez mountains with no name, where I salvaged the fishing aspect of the trip with a single, relatively pure strain Rio Grande cutthroat. Anyway...

Upon returning, the first thing I did was call around and find some warn manual hubs. Installed. Then decided why quit there? mod fever ensues...

Did some reading, decided I needed to lift Terra. Measured garage. Figured out I couldn't do the SL and the BL and still have her sleep indoors. Did some more reading. Installed SL...



you can also see the warn hubs. Lift finished: (sorry for crappy iphone pic)



More research, ordered wheels (17" eagle alloys) and tires (295 70r17 Nitto Trail Grapplers) Put them on ...



...and CAREFULLY drove down to my buddy's garage/shop to do some trimmin'



Took 2" off the front behind the wheel by cutting out a pie-shaped slice in front of the pinch weld, pushing it back, a little gentle edge massage, welded it back together, sprayed some bedliner over it to make it purty...



And then sprayed the outside part of the fender where the mudguard used to be with bedliner.



Cut off a pretty good part of the front fender, then sent it to my buddy at the body shop for a facial (paint front bumper and restore headlights). Also yanked the step rails.



At this point, it was decided to make that muddy road pay for what it had done to us, so back we went...



Great success!



Here's my infamous duct tape/hockey stick fly rod rack, above:



You can see at the top edge of the pic the other part of the fly rod rack is kayak cargo brackets with an elastic band that holds the end of the fly rod behind the reel, the foam rubber with the holes holds the rod itself. 9' rods fit nicely, just short of the windshield.

I wired up Hellas and attached them to the safari bar:



Safari bar and Hellas came off when I found some time to get started on a real front bumper



Before the new bumper build, went wheelin'!



...and got dirty:



Another round of mods included rolling the rear fenders to prevent bad things happening at full stuff:



And then a 1" BL to make sure (took the 2" DIY BL bolts, cut the pucks in half and then used the discards for spacers so I could use the same bolts)

then it got serious. Custom tube front bumper:


rear tube bumper:


swing-away spare tire carrier:

(and CB antenna remount)

B&M Lightbars light basket and 4 PIAA 4" superwhites:



Total Chaos King Kong Steering:





Powertank: