I've always been a Toyota truck guy since I was little in the early 80's to the mid 90's. I've bought a sold a lot of different Toyota off-road vehicles, but this one was different.
I’m currently working on a 1993 Toyota 4Runner that started life as a red-bodied truck with a 2000 VW 1.9L Jetta TDI turbo diesel swap. When I bought it, the previous owner had converted the engine to a manual injection pump, and the truck was already straight-axle swapped with a Diamond Axle heavy-duty Toyota housing up front. What I thought would be a quick flip turned into a keeper after driving it. It became a family project when my wife surprised me one Christmas and told me to build it the way I wanted — for us to actually use.
When I got it, it was more of an overland-style rig on 32-inch tires, but still unfinished. The first major change was swapping the red body for a silver donor 4Runner, which also added a factory sunroof. From there, I focused on making the drivetrain and engine work better as a complete system. One of the biggest projects was converting the diesel back to modern electronic injection, which meant building a custom engine harness and doing ECU programming to make everything work correctly and reliably.
For the drivetrain, I tracked down a matching Diamond Axle rear housing so the truck would be properly balanced front to rear. I added ARB air lockers to both axles, a high-pinion front third, and dual Marlin Crawler transfer cases with 2.28 and 4.7 reduction gears. A lot of those parts came from donor vehicles I bought specifically to scavenge and then part out — very much a budget-minded, hands-on build.
One challenge with the diesel swap was highway driving. With the axle gearing it needed off-road, the engine RPMs were too high at freeway speeds. To solve that, I modified the transmission with a 5th-gear ratio change, dropping it from 1:1 to 0.75:1, which made the truck far more usable on long drives.
Right now, the truck sits on 15-inch trail-ready beadlock wheels, again sourced from a donor vehicle I bought just for the wheels. The build is still evolving, but the focus has always been the same: solving real problems, understanding how each system works together, and building something reliable that can be driven, wheeled, and enjoyed with my family.
It’s still not done, but we have taken it on a couple test runs and one family off roading trip so far.
