Introducing my blue / gray premium LC 250 Yoter. Currently just shy of 2,000 miles with no issues to report yet. He will spend most of his life as my daily driver with 2-4 over landing trips per year. This is the first 4x4 I've owned, and my last car was an Accord. This sort of modding is new to me.
Right after purchase had him fully wrapped in Xpel ultimate PPF, added a couple stripes at the bottom of the doors, and topped off with a ceramic coat.
The first round of modifications is part way through currently, Skid plates and rock sliders. With the plan to keep him running as long as I can, I have to make sure he's protected.
OEM 3 piece Skid plate set ordered online from Nucar Toyota, Engine, transmission, and rear differential came out to $909 after taxes and shipping. These all seem to be made from 3/16" formed steel. The shipping weight of all 3 was 63 lbs. Sure there are stronger and heavier after market options out there, but if I'm being realistic these are adequate for my use case. One thing I didn't realize prior to purchasing is the rear diff plate + rubber pad reduces the diff clearance by ~1". Next time I'm under there I'll have to measure the new clearance. Maybe it was my rookie experience with this but the install was much more difficult than I expected. The passanger side bracket was extremely difficult to slide into place around the rear sway bar and the brake line. I eventually got it on there with a fair bit of grunting and swearing. It makes me wonder if the rear sway bar was moved ~ 1/4" between the 24' and 25' models or its optimized for the 4runner / taco.
The front and transmission skid still need to be installed. I ran out of time this weekend and plan to do an oil change prior to putting the front skid on. I will also install the Fumoto drain plug valve to make future changes easy, and waiting for that to come in. All that said the OEM skid plates seemed to have arrived with all the hardware and brackets needed to install them.
For the rock sliders I went with Slee offroad's. I needed one that still functioned well like a step as my SO is 5'-1" and needs a step to get in without a running start. I narrowed it down between Slee's and CBI's, ultimately choosig Slee because the mounts seemed stronger. However I do wish Slee offered one with a kick out, or at least without the taper in front of the rear wheel as the step is a bit smaller when getting into the back seat now. It's still usable, you just need to make sure your foot is in the right spot getting in.
Slee packages these really well, they arrived on a pallet and basically a cardboard crate padded with a spray foam. If you order these get them delivered to where every you are installing them because with packaging they will not fit inside the LC. I had to drive the couple miles from my office to house with the tailgate up.
Installing the sliders went relatively well, I'm glad I had a floor jack and stands on hand to get it within an 1" of the final location and support the weight of the slider as they are 80lbs each. Their instructions are easy to follow. That said on the driver side I had to remove a cable zip tie and anchor on the frame that their instructions missed. In one of my pictures you can see the new orange zip tie to move the wire up and out of the way, the anchor point removed was between the orange zip tie and the bolt, behind the slider mounting plate. Time wise I spent around 3.5 hours getting both of the sliders on. The first one took more than twice as long as the 2nd since I was taking my time to make sure I didn't miss anything or injure myself in the process.
I have to go back and install the Slee lights to the sliders. No where in the slider instructions does it say "Hint: install the light brackets to the sliders before mounting them to the vehicle." but on the light install instructions that hint is right at the very top.
Along side the slider install I removed the front air dams and switched out the mud flaps for the knock off first edition ones from amazon. I like the new mud flaps a lot more than the stock ones, but on the rears wish they extended up to the top screw of the stock ones. I didn't notice it before in other forum pics but with it stopping short the rear fender flair has a random bump out that previously lined up with the top of the stock flap.
More to come
Right after purchase had him fully wrapped in Xpel ultimate PPF, added a couple stripes at the bottom of the doors, and topped off with a ceramic coat.
The first round of modifications is part way through currently, Skid plates and rock sliders. With the plan to keep him running as long as I can, I have to make sure he's protected.
OEM 3 piece Skid plate set ordered online from Nucar Toyota, Engine, transmission, and rear differential came out to $909 after taxes and shipping. These all seem to be made from 3/16" formed steel. The shipping weight of all 3 was 63 lbs. Sure there are stronger and heavier after market options out there, but if I'm being realistic these are adequate for my use case. One thing I didn't realize prior to purchasing is the rear diff plate + rubber pad reduces the diff clearance by ~1". Next time I'm under there I'll have to measure the new clearance. Maybe it was my rookie experience with this but the install was much more difficult than I expected. The passanger side bracket was extremely difficult to slide into place around the rear sway bar and the brake line. I eventually got it on there with a fair bit of grunting and swearing. It makes me wonder if the rear sway bar was moved ~ 1/4" between the 24' and 25' models or its optimized for the 4runner / taco.
The front and transmission skid still need to be installed. I ran out of time this weekend and plan to do an oil change prior to putting the front skid on. I will also install the Fumoto drain plug valve to make future changes easy, and waiting for that to come in. All that said the OEM skid plates seemed to have arrived with all the hardware and brackets needed to install them.
For the rock sliders I went with Slee offroad's. I needed one that still functioned well like a step as my SO is 5'-1" and needs a step to get in without a running start. I narrowed it down between Slee's and CBI's, ultimately choosig Slee because the mounts seemed stronger. However I do wish Slee offered one with a kick out, or at least without the taper in front of the rear wheel as the step is a bit smaller when getting into the back seat now. It's still usable, you just need to make sure your foot is in the right spot getting in.
Slee packages these really well, they arrived on a pallet and basically a cardboard crate padded with a spray foam. If you order these get them delivered to where every you are installing them because with packaging they will not fit inside the LC. I had to drive the couple miles from my office to house with the tailgate up.
Installing the sliders went relatively well, I'm glad I had a floor jack and stands on hand to get it within an 1" of the final location and support the weight of the slider as they are 80lbs each. Their instructions are easy to follow. That said on the driver side I had to remove a cable zip tie and anchor on the frame that their instructions missed. In one of my pictures you can see the new orange zip tie to move the wire up and out of the way, the anchor point removed was between the orange zip tie and the bolt, behind the slider mounting plate. Time wise I spent around 3.5 hours getting both of the sliders on. The first one took more than twice as long as the 2nd since I was taking my time to make sure I didn't miss anything or injure myself in the process.
I have to go back and install the Slee lights to the sliders. No where in the slider instructions does it say "Hint: install the light brackets to the sliders before mounting them to the vehicle." but on the light install instructions that hint is right at the very top.
Along side the slider install I removed the front air dams and switched out the mud flaps for the knock off first edition ones from amazon. I like the new mud flaps a lot more than the stock ones, but on the rears wish they extended up to the top screw of the stock ones. I didn't notice it before in other forum pics but with it stopping short the rear fender flair has a random bump out that previously lined up with the top of the stock flap.
More to come
