After running Old Chinaman's Gulch in Colorado and various other trails in Arizona, I knew I wanted to get a bit more height under the rear axle and front a-arms. The best way to do this effectively is obviously larger tires. I had 285/75/16 Goodyear MT/R tires and wanted to go to a 315/75/16 tire. After seeing how well Pete from California did with the Yokohama Geolander AT + II's he has I knew that I would not be buying another set of expensive hard to balance Goodyear MT/R's. Listed below are the steps in which I took to fit the 315/15/16 Yokohama Geolanders under my 4Runner without any rubbing under all positions of articulation. From full stuff to full droop, entire steering radius. Most of the work was done in regards to the front tires, the rear tires cleared just fine without any further modifications. The only thing not shown is the installation of the Roger Brown 1" body lift. This has been extremely well documented on Roger's site and elsewhere and I do not see any point in repeating it.
Pete from California climbing Yellow Belly ledge in Martinez Canyon with Yokohama Geolander AT + II's. 285/75/16 size at Azrocks in March of 2003.
TJM bumper ends after being cut down, bobbed and re-welded.
Back side of the front fender, lower pinch weld completely ground flat and TIG welded shut.
Some of the debris from the 285 to 315 cutting.
Power Steering and Oil coolers installed. The top cooler is the for the steering and the lower the engine oil. Update Nov. 2004: I removed the oil cooler, it did not help cool the engine and just created additional points to leak oil. The PS cooler is working GREAT!
Randy Ellis built me this super slick custom spare tire mount. It is all the way up to the body with the 1" body lift. He designed it to hold the 315/75/16 tire completely under the body. A 315 is 34.5" in diameter. and 12.5" wide. The stock exhaust had to be re-routed wider as well.
Out on Upper Woodpecker in the rain. Jan 2004. The white 1992 Mini Pickup has 31's for comparison. |
Cutting 2.5" off the ends of the TJM T-17 wrap arounds.
Modified TJM bumper end installed on the 4Runner. The dirty part is the cover for the washer fluid inside the fender.
Here you can see the lower back side of painted fender has been cut away.
The 315's being a 12.5" wide tire have a tendency to heat up the steering rack. A Derale 13200 power steering cooler was added as well as a Derale 15502 motor oil cooler. With the 315's and the cooler the power steering rack is the same temp now as with the original 265/70/16 tires.
Coke bottle opener had to find a new home on the outside of the frame rails.
After a year of living with a rear swing out tire carrier, I am so glad it is gone, you have no idea how nice it is to easily open the rear tailgate and not have that stupid tire in your rear window.
Upper Woodpecker fire hole bypass, even in a downpour the Yokohama's when right up. |
It should be noted that I already had 5.29 gears and an Ultimate Marlin Crawler dual transfer case setup. Without these items the 35's would not have been possible. ATS A-Arms are also required to clear the wider 12.5" tire with 4.5" backspaced rims. I consulted Mark Mason, Randy Ellis and Mike Caskey on the strength of the 3rd gen axle shafts (ORS Manual Hub kit shafts) and the 35's. All agreed that if you didn't "try" to break them they would hold up. I swapped the Warn Tacoma hubs out with genuine Toyota Aisin Hubs as well for strength.
