I am building out a 2005 GX 470 for overland travel. My philosophy of overlanding is more like backpacking with a truck, and less like wilderness RV camping, so my main priorities are off road capability and reliability, and, unfortunately, budget. Currently the truck is dead stock. I currently have on order an OME 2.5 medium duty lift kit and 5 255/85/R17 Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T tires which I plan to mount on the stock wheels with no spacers. I will order an Aussie locker in near future. Next thing will be rock sliders, a winch, and a front bumper. I have a bunch of tube steel at a local fabricator for another project that went bad (vehicle fire/long story/not the fabricator's fault) so I will have the sliders, and probably the front bumper custom fabbed. I have couple major questions getting started.
1. Do I need to replace my upper control arms? There seems to be varied opinions on this, with some people saying that the factory ones limit down travel and will destroy ball joints with any lift at all, and others saying that it doesn't matter if your lift is under 3 inches, so I have to say I'm a bit confused.
2. Where do I put my spare tire? I'm not paying $1K for a door hanger assembly like the JW...period, not only because I can't bring myself to pay a grand for a steel plate and some hardware, but because I'm not big on hanging 90LB of wheel and tire off my rear door. So that leaves me with a swingout of some kind, or, or a roof rack. The roof rack is the easy button. It's relatively cost effective, and i can put our sleep gear, the spare tire, the hi lift, and probably my trail lights all on the roof. (the sleep gear will probably go there no matter what). The question is "do I really want 200LB of stuff on top of my off road vehicle?" The other options is for the sleep gear (and maybe lights) to go on the roof, and put the tire and jack on a rear bumper. This is good because it put 100 LB+ on the bumper instead of the roof. It's bad because it adds 100LB and a lot of money to the build as a whole.
3. Storage. I need a storage solution in the back. Drawers would be ideal, but again, $4k for a custom drawer system is crazy. Dobinson makes at drawer system for about $1200, which is more like it, but is also made of all steel, so pretty heavy as well as still expensive. I would be OK with a box system as well as a drawer system, since it's pretty easy to load boxes and then throw them in the truck. What's a pain is playing Tetris with two million small items time I break camp. This needs to end!
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice.
1. Do I need to replace my upper control arms? There seems to be varied opinions on this, with some people saying that the factory ones limit down travel and will destroy ball joints with any lift at all, and others saying that it doesn't matter if your lift is under 3 inches, so I have to say I'm a bit confused.
2. Where do I put my spare tire? I'm not paying $1K for a door hanger assembly like the JW...period, not only because I can't bring myself to pay a grand for a steel plate and some hardware, but because I'm not big on hanging 90LB of wheel and tire off my rear door. So that leaves me with a swingout of some kind, or, or a roof rack. The roof rack is the easy button. It's relatively cost effective, and i can put our sleep gear, the spare tire, the hi lift, and probably my trail lights all on the roof. (the sleep gear will probably go there no matter what). The question is "do I really want 200LB of stuff on top of my off road vehicle?" The other options is for the sleep gear (and maybe lights) to go on the roof, and put the tire and jack on a rear bumper. This is good because it put 100 LB+ on the bumper instead of the roof. It's bad because it adds 100LB and a lot of money to the build as a whole.
3. Storage. I need a storage solution in the back. Drawers would be ideal, but again, $4k for a custom drawer system is crazy. Dobinson makes at drawer system for about $1200, which is more like it, but is also made of all steel, so pretty heavy as well as still expensive. I would be OK with a box system as well as a drawer system, since it's pretty easy to load boxes and then throw them in the truck. What's a pain is playing Tetris with two million small items time I break camp. This needs to end!
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice.
