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I just dropped my transmission and oil pan to replace the oil pan seal and rear main seal. On the rear main seal there is a channel where the rubber upper pan seal goes into where you do goop it with RTV and sandwich it between the oil pan. I removed my whole pan and replaced the front and rear seals as I'm already this far I might as well do it right now then have it leak later down the road. Although you do have to remove quite a bit of things to get the whole pan off. Also if you take the pan off theres 2 o rings inside that you'll need to replace as well. I just ordered the Felpro RMS that comes with a new retainer and the oil pan gasket set that came with the 2 seals for front and rear as well as the o rings. Best of luck with the pathfinder! Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

TL;DR at bottom before pic. Hey all, Been lurking here for a couple months reading up on guides and how-to's and looking at mods other people have done. Now it's my turn to post. My buddy's dad bought this 02 back in 2004 and drove the hell out of it. Mid-2018 he started having transmission problems. With 287k on it, he opted to just park it and he bought a new 4Runner. Well finally talked with him about it and I told him I'd buy it off of him. And that was that. Wouldn't stay running due to the idle air control valve, so replaced that and then test drove it hard and had no issues with the transmission. I didn't want to throw a transmission at it without confirming that's what it was. So I started doing other things to it. I bought some old 4Runner wheels with tires off craigslist for a few hundred dollars, great deal especially since the guy said the PO had just installed them before selling the 4Runner, and then the current owner put some aftermarket wheels and mud tires on, so I came out with tires with only 700 miles on them and date code is end of 2018. I installed some Warn hubs, a new alternator (bearing had started making a ton of noise and I screwed up reassembling the old alternator with the new bearings), new idler pulley, replaced the oil cooler o-ring and the rack boot on that side that the oil had deteriorated. Got some AC lift springs with Bilstein 33-185552 rear shocks and KYB 335032/335033 front struts and new strut bushings, also replaced the rear upper trailing arm bushings, they were absolutely wrecked haha. Also replaced all fluids in the truck except brake fluid (will probably do that next oil change). So after all of that and the looming question of "when the hell is this transmission going to fail" and driving 200 miles with no issues it finally bit the dust on me at 70 MPH cruising on the freeway heading home from my parents place after watching the Seahawks lose the divisional game. Felt like it dropped 4th gear and went into 3rd, was at 3500-4000 RPM. I needed gas anyway so I filled her up, started driving again and couldn't do much but crawl. Then it clunked and shifted fine a couple times. Luckily I was a couple miles from my work (I work at a car dealership as a technician). Unfortunately I didn't make it, after getting stopped at a light, it wouldn't shift out of first anymore and the metal on metal grinding noise coming from underneath me was enough to convince me to call for a tow. AAA got there and towed it to my work. I ordered up a transmission from a wrecking yard with 87k on it and bought the 1 year warranty on it. Now I'm just waiting for it to get here. TL;DR->> So here are my questions, I am already planning on replacing the internal filter on the 'new' transmission (I know its just a metal screen and doesn't do much but I'm planning on looking in the pan anyway), I am also planning on installing an aftermarket tranny cooler to bypass the factory one in the radiator (Hayden 678 if anyone is wondering). I was thinking if I should do the rear main seal as well, even though it looks like you are supposed to remove the oil pan, are you able to just add liquid gasket to the bottom of the seal retainer and call it good, or is it an actual fitment issue that is blocking you from replacing the RMS without dropping the pan? Also when I did my ATF change I used Valvoline MaxLife synthetic ATF. Do you guys recommend that or should I do a different fluid with the new transmission? Anything else you guys recommend I rock out when doing the transmission? Thanks! Jack

First thing when you intend to drop the oil pan on a VG engine, before even disconnecting the battery, pull the oil dipstick and put it far away so you are not tempted to put it back in before the pan is installed. You will be swearing otherwise. My personal experience has been the "rear main leak" has usually been the pan seal rather than the main seal.

Polished my combustion chambers up to 3000 grit it’s not perfect but a hell of a lot better than they were when I pulled them, I know it won’t produce any real noticeable gains but since this Vg30e rebuild is going on a year now ( due to all the powdercoating) I will start a rebuild thread one of these days, porter out all the casting slag out of the intakes and plan to do a little polishing on the exhaust side. truly a labour of love. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You might be on to something actually... I went and took another look behind the bumper cover and I’m thinking it might be interesting to try and go THROUGH it, with the support arms mounted to the body like you said. That way I still keep the stock looks mostly intact, but have a sturdier mounting point. Hmmmmm

That's a super good idea. I work on Acuras professionally and when we do engines they drop out with the subframe and we use kinda the same trick. We use old subframe bolts, cut the heads off and cut a notch in them so when we are lowering the car onto the subframe we can get it positioned correctly and don't have to mess with trying to lines the holes up. Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

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Just an FYI those are halogen projectors. They still use a h1 halogen bulb. Mine are done with true HID projectors and use a D2S bulb. The light output wouldn’t even be the same but they do look nice. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks!!! This is awesome. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Feels like my build has been on hold for a while. I hate slowing down because if I don’t keep on it, I’ll end up settling and the truck isn’t getting any younger Been super preoccupied with fixing the 4runner up because it’s an old bastard that refuses to work properly. Turns out having 340K miles brings out the @!*%tiest and hardest to solve problems....who knew? lmao Apparently it’s having a fuel issue where it’s dumping too much into bank 1 and causing a super rich condition, but it’s also having an issue with the O2 sensor circuit so the fuel trim data is not updating fast enough during cold starts, which means the ecu is plugging in the -40 % stored fuel trim value at stop lights when you try to get on the gas, and it’s bogging because of too much air while cutting fuel. So it’s a sort of serious problem in and of itself, but its only causing drivability issues because of how it’s being handled by the rest of the air/fuel system. So now I’ve got to trace the wiring harness through the engine to see where it’s messed up and hopefully get it working properly before I can tackle the actual fuel issue, which is most likely the fuel pressure regulator. I’ve got brand new injectors in the truck, so I doubt they are leaking, but who knows? I’ve changed more sensors than I care to think about, including the the O2 sensor itself, so I’ve narrowed it down to basically those two possibilities. Dammit, I’m Toyota ranting again. My bad. Anyway, once I sort out the 4runner, I’m going to have more time and money to put towards my truck but I’m trying to prioritize the next mods carefully. My list is long and the price tag comes out to around 3K if I were to do everything I want, so I’ll have to pace myself and knock out the more important stuff first. I think the next logical step will be a rear tire carrier, but I’m going to go the custom route on this one because I can’t seem to find any WD21 carriers online or in the junkyards. There was one on eBay about a month ago going for less than 200, and I’m kicking myself for not snagging it because it disappeared super quickly. Oh well. My current plan is to weld/bolt steel tubing sections to the sides of the OEM hitch so that they stick out maybe 5 inches from the bumper cover and the weld a 5 foot piece of tubing across the top of them plus the flat top of the hitch itself, and then install one of the generic swing gates they sell for jeeps on top of the tubing. This way I can keep the hitch accessible for towing and recovery, and also don’t have to mess around with the drilling into the pillar to fit the WD21 carrier. I figure all told it’ll be less than 500 bucks in steel and labor, which is reasonable. After the install I’m tempted to also upgrade to the nrc9446 springs because I heard they offer an additional 1/2 inch of lift over the 9447s that I have right now, which would make sure I don’t get a bunch of take under the weight of all the steel. And while I’m in there, I want to put on the 26inch bilsteins as well. In the mean time, I’d like to get the front end sorted out in terms of new CVs, new ball joints, end links, tie rods, and control arms. Everything can be/needs to be done at the same time so I can tighten up the steering and handling and make sure the CVs are ready for the trails because one of them has a busted boot and I don’t trust it anymore. If the price is reasonable, then I’ll have a shop do it for me to save me some headache, but otherwise I can also try it myself. Just nervous when it comes to things like ball joints and CVs because of all the horror stories involving rusted bolts, hammers, pickle forks, and clearance issues lol So yeah, more updates soon hopefully

Technically neither, it’s tribal land because it was on a reservation. My girlfriend was raised there and most of their roads are unpaved so we came across lots of mud Haha I wish it was an off-road park though. I keep trying to get her to agree to a Moab detour on the way home but no luck so far. I really need to test the rigs capabilities, and waiting for Colorado to thaw is just awful

The mudders got their first taste of mud in New Mexico visiting the SO’s family Wired up some fog lights to the front brush guard a couple days ago and I’m glad I did because we hit some mean fog in the way into ABQ

I can finally report that the power valve screws are done turns out none of them were missing or loose, but I locktited them anyway to be safe. Even though the job seemed like a waste of 4 hours, at least now I have peace of mind. Going to be taking a long road trip soon, so I’m glad I know for sure that they won’t be falling out when I had it running in the garage to confirm that I put everything back together properly, I noticed a faint squealing and it turned out to be an idler pulley not putting enough tension on one of the serpentine belts, so I tightened it up and the squeaking stopped. Very happy I caught it before it shredded a belt because that same thing happened a few months back on the other belt

Don’t judge my wiring job! It’s still a little rough for now. I was also trying to be as un-invasive as possible, so it’s not a super clean install. Just functional and not an eye sore

Random parking lot picture I’ll be sure to post some more when the rock lights go on

Its been a little while since my last update. Just got the warn manual hubs in the mail today, so I'm looking forward to installing them. I'm planning to tackle the power valve screws at the same time. I've been busy this past week with thanksgiving travelling so I haven't had a chance yet. On tuesday I finished doing the injectors and valve cover gaskets on my girlfriends 4runner. I'm still not done though, I found a crack in the passenger side cover so I'm going to replace it as soon as the part comes in. The damn thing is also starting to hesitate when you give it more than a light suggestion of throttle as you're starting off from a stop light, so I also have to look into that. Maybe TPS, but I'm not sure what could have changed since I never messed with it during the disassembly or reassembly. Anyway, Ill stop there so I dont get bashed for talking toyota lol On the pathy I installed a hitch mounted shackle which has already seen some use pulling people out of the snow. I picked up a smittybuilt trail jack (HiLift) and mounted it to the front brushguard in a spot thats not really noticeable but also keeps it easily accessible, rather than having to take it off the roof and fumble around risking damage. I also put on a set of rear facing light pods and I have a set of rock lights that I'll be installing along the running boards in the near future. To keep the dash clean, I've been wiring everything to a single switch panel mounted just forward of the dome lights (where the sunglasses holder used to be). So far, the main light bar, undercarriage camera monitor, and rear facing lights are all wired up, and once the rock lights go on, I can finish the job by closing off some open space that is leaving the wires exposed because the switch panel doesn't cover the entire hole. There's a fifth switch thats separate from the others and I've been brainstorming ideas on what to do with it. Yes I could just get some yellow fogs and mount those to the brush guard down low, but what fun is that?? Its also got a push button "ignition" style switch next to it, so my mind immediately jumps to having some sort of crazy contraption wired up to a two stage system where you have to first toggle the switch to arm and then push the button to activate. I have no idea what contraption would be cool enough to warrant a system like that, but I don't think surface to air missiles are a legal vehicle customization, so I'll have to skip that one.......for now. I ordered a wavian 5 gallon jerry can yesterday and was playing around with the idea of mounting it to an aluminum plate, and then attaching the assembly to the truck with some sort of hinged mechanism where the spare tire usually goes (underneath the truck). I'll be getting a full sized spare soon and likely a swinging carrier to mount it on, so the space would be unused. Maybe the switches could be wired to a door solenoid that catches the edge plate and holds it, and when its activated the solenoid could release the gate and allow access to the jerry can? I'd have to measure how much room there is in the spare tire well of course, and then find a solenoid with a strong bolt that is normally extended rather than retracted so that turning the truck off doesnt dump the jerry can. But I think it would be possible. The main thing I'm trying to avoid is having a big ugly gas can sticking straight up on the roof. Oh yeah and I've also got an NPORA sticker coming in the mail next week, so thats pretty sweet. The rig is starting to come together now, and its really exciting. My girl is getting mad that I cant stop staring at it through the window whenever we go out to eat haha. Thanks a lot guys, I blame all of you for this obsession

Denver got hit hard. Pathy didn’t seem to mind though. I’m surprised how well the mudders did