How a forgotten base-model SUV, a rare drivetrain combination, and a lot of stubborn determination turned into the coolest 4Runner I’ve ever owned.

There are certain vehicles that stick with you long after you sell them. For me, that vehicle has always been my 1996 Toyota 4Runner.

Back in 2022, I sold the truck to a gentleman who appreciated it as much as I did. It wasn’t perfect, but it had personality, reliability, and that unmistakable third-generation 4Runner toughness that Toyota became famous for. The truck had always been a bit of an oddball too, a rare combination of the 3RZ 2.7L four-cylinder engine paired with a manual transmission and four-wheel drive. Simple, durable, and nearly impossible to kill.

In the spring of 2025, I had the opportunity to buy it back.

What surprised me most was how much care had gone into restoring it while it was gone. The previous owner had spent countless hours refreshing the interior using Limited trim parts, bringing the cabin back to life in a way I never expected. The truck felt newer, cleaner, and more refined without losing its rugged charm.

But the biggest surprise was something incredibly small.

Intermittent windshield wipers.

It sounds ridiculous, but my mom and I had joked for years that the truck was nearly perfect except for two things: it didn’t have intermittent wipers, and it didn’t have air conditioning. Somehow, this incredibly capable SUV came from the factory missing two basic comfort features that most people completely take for granted.

Seeing the intermittent wipers finally installed sparked an idea in my head:

“If we fixed one thing Toyota never gave this truck… why not fix the other?”

That thought quickly turned into one of the biggest retrofit projects I’ve ever taken on.

The first challenge came almost immediately. I contacted a local Toyota dealer hoping to track down factory A/C schematics for the truck, only to discover something unexpected: my specific 3RZ-equipped Canadian-market 4Runner apparently never offered factory air conditioning, at least not here in British Columbia.

Most people probably would have stopped there.

I didn’t.

After digging through parts diagrams and researching Toyota’s platform sharing from the mid-90s, I discovered something promising. While the Canadian 4Runner may never have received A/C with the 3RZ engine, the equivalent Tacoma models did. Even better, many of the HVAC and chassis components appeared interchangeable with the 5VZ-equipped V6 4Runners that came factory-equipped with air conditioning.

That was enough for me to take the gamble.

I sourced a complete A/C system from a local auto wrecker and got to work.

To my surprise, most of the retrofit went shockingly smoothly. The evaporator box slid into place like it belonged there. The condenser, receiver-drier, refrigerant lines, and much of the electrical system matched up with the 3RZ chassis almost perfectly. In many ways, Toyota had already engineered the truck to accept A/C, they just never installed it.

For a while, the project felt almost too easy.

Then came the pulley system and compressor.

That’s where everything got complicated.

Because the truck never officially received factory A/C in this configuration, sourcing the correct accessory drive components became a scavenger hunt across forums, parts diagrams, and American salvage yards. I eventually tracked down the correct harmonic balancer pulley and compressor mounting bracket through sellers on eBay, piecing together a combination of Tacoma and 4Runner parts that should have worked.

Except they didn’t.

The 5VZ compressor physically would not align correctly with the 3RZ setup.

At that point, I turned to RockAuto and ordered what I believed was the correct compressor. Then I discovered another problem: despite selecting the 3RZ application, there were conflicting part numbers listed depending on production dates and configurations. Eventually, after ordering two compressors and doing more cross-referencing than I ever wanted to, I finally ended up with the correct unit.

Once everything lined up properly, we charged the system and fired it up for the first time.

Cold air.

Success!

At least temporarily.

Not long after, we discovered the system had a blockage issue that prevented proper refrigerant flow. After tracing the problem through the system, the culprit turned out to be the expansion valve. We replaced it, evacuated and recharged the system again, and finally the retrofit worked exactly the way it was supposed to.

Now, over a year later, the system still blows ice-cold air without issue.

And honestly? It completely transformed the truck.

There’s something deeply satisfying about taking a vehicle that never had a feature from the factory and building it as though it always belonged there. The truck still feels rugged and analog, but now it has just enough comfort to make long summer drives enjoyable again, especially for my wife and our pets, who spend a lot of time riding along with me.

What started as inspiration from a set of intermittent windshield wipers became one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever completed on a vehicle.

The old 4Runner was always indestructible. Now it’s comfortable too!