My GX460 -> Prado 150 Build and Travel Thread (2 Viewers)

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

I knew I was lying to myself when I bought my GX460 and told myself "this is staying stock". At the time, owning a high mileage 80 series and an almost too meticulously built 1st gen 4runner to daily drive, I spent about a year searching for really the only GX460 I thought was cool - an early model 2010-2013 in peridot mica, base trim, with preferably the sepia interior.

I missed out on a few where I would call day after listing and the trucks were already sold. Early one Friday morning one popped up on one of my saved searches in NE Arkansas. Not a terrible distance from Kansas City, but with only 77k miles, it also had some minor damage reported so I was skeptical. Some exchanging of information between myself and the salesman at the Ford dealer who had listed this GX were great and honest. I was sent great pictures/information, and the minor accident reported on carfax really must have been someone claiming some quick insurance money for some minor scratches. Immediately after work, I hopped in my 4runner and hit the road for a 7 hour drive. Stopping in the Ozark national forest, I slept in the back of the truck before continuing the rest of the drive the following morning. Several hours later (on January 23rd, 2021) at the dealership and it was mine! I then rented a Uhaul trailer, loaded up the 4runner, immediately found out one of the tires was flat, and then eventually got on the road after dealing with their roadside assistance for a highway drive that was better than anything I had ever experienced.

I don't think I had been home with the GX for 2 hours before I hopped on facebook marketplace and found a great deal on a BP51 suspension system for sale locally...Yeah, spoiler alert, it isn't going to stay stock.

I'm really fortunate I bought this truck when I did. One of my first winters in KC, and we were hit with some double digit negative temps in the mornings and nearly two weeks of ice and slush. It also gave me plenty of time to experience traction control and all of the more modern amenities like heated seats. Anyways, I'm super thankful I didn't have to have either of my other vehicles out in this grime and for fear of being hit by someone else.

Once the weather warmed up a little bit, I began blacking out the chrome. Not much longer after that, I drove down to my parents' place in Oklahoma where my dad and I quickly knocked out the lift kit install along with some baselining. While it was on the lift and torn apart, I added an Eimkeith PCK, airlift bags, and timbren active bumps.

I also added some 285/70r17 Cooper AT3 XLTs and 4runner trail wheels I picked up for a song after giving up on waiting for the evo corses I ordered with my stimulus check.

I then chopped the running boards, added an F sport grille, had the front windows tinted to match, painted the roof rails and crossbar feet black, and plastidipped the wheels black to make it as stealthy as I could.

With a summer time trip to Colorado in the works with some friends, I threw together a quick platform in the back, strapped down my spare, and hit the road.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Colorado was great and I've never been more comfortable. The IFS really feels like you're "in it" vs "on top of it" when it comes to vehicle stability. With as relatively "stock" as the truck was, it was great and handled the altitude better than I could have hoped. The precision of the steering, the smoothness of the v8, and KDSS were all awesome and leaps and bounds better than anything I had ever driven before...not to mention things being relatively new and not really needing to worry about what random things could go wrong unlike on a 400k+ mile 80 series.

Upon returning home, my prado rear taillights had arrived to further update the back end and look a little more stealthy than the bright red taillights. The wiring took a little while to figure out so I've attached what I did below as well.

After dealing with random connectivity issues on the colorado trip, I definitely wanted to upgrade the headunit with a grom vline2 unit. For those who don't know, this plugs in to the screen inline with the factory harness and replaces the usb input with an android operating system loaded with android auto and carplay. Having wireless carplay has been great and honestly, for being a touchscreen in 2011, this screen is pretty dang good quality and responsive. Instead of hiding the grom unit in the glovebox, I went a step further and secured it with some brackets inside the shifter tunnel cover area for a very clean installation.

Every now and then, I do get some lag or connectivity issues, but I simply reset the device and that fixes it...happens less often than I had issues with the original stuff. Also to note, proximity sensors might have been bypassed by this unit (didn't matter to me as I turned mine off because they'd go crazy with my bike rack on there) and the reverse camera rarely automatically switches on and takes over the screen. I've been meaning to install a new camera directly to the grom unit, but haven't cared enough to up until recently.

Then I wanted to address the rear cargo area. It really sucks when you take the seats out on these as you're left with an extremely difficult area to finish out cleanly. I removed the seatbelts (which leaves panels missing in the d pillars unless you want to cut the belts...which I didn't as I may reinstall this stuff some day). I threw down some noico sound deadener and began building a base plate to cover everything back there.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

I quickly gave up on the idea of a baseplate and went ahead and decided to build a raised platform with slide out section. I kept the front of the "box" open so I could dig out things from behind the seats as I didn't have time or want to add drawers. The slide out top simply nests under the platform and slides out onto the back of the rear seats when folded down. I built some little support brackets that secure it so I can drive around with it deployed and so it doesn't shift around if I'm moving around back there. Can't be scratching that beautiful wood grain or leather.

Much better than the previous set up. You may be wondering where my spare tire is. My friend hauled that in his tundra somewhere under the bikes, motos, blackstone grill, milwaukee light tower, coolers, and everything else they packed.

Finishing up the platform a day before a spring trip to Utah with some friends was clutch as we needed to be as efficient as possible...

This trip was epic to say the least and we had a solid mix of everything from wheeling in Moab, ripping around on the sand dunes, to driving deep into the deserts on BLM double track. The BP51s were also great and I was even partially able to keep up with my friends on their motos out there. Something that never would have been possible on a softer suspension.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

After that trip, I bought this old 1-owner '93 xtra cab, 4wd, 22re pick up with 86k miles that became my project for awhile. The GX hauled it like a champ

With another year by, it was time to start prepping for a spring utah trip again. This time, one of my local friends and I were more interested in wheeling stuff by ourselves so I knew I needed a way to carry a spare tire. One of the reasons why I wanted an early model GX460 is because of the rear bumper reflector and reverse light cut out. I knew this would be perfect for a factory bumper swing out so I got to designing and building.

Reverse light trimmed off and sealed with black silicone. Ready for reinstallation

If you look closely, I did a few unique things I wanted to try out...like using unistrut for horizontals. There are some pretty cool nuts specifically for unistrut that give it almost tube like strength while enabling things to be easily adjustable and configurable. Being a GX460 with a massive side swinging rear door, the single arm swing out made the most sense. Built out of 1.5" OD x .095" DOM tube, I probably would have liked to go a little thicker, but that was the max for my friend's bender so I was limited there. It's held up great, but does have a little bit of wiggle to it. For a first iteration though, it's been great and done the job.

After biking some in Fruita, we set out on the Kokopelli trail to Moab

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Camped somewhere out in the middle of nowhere along the Kokopelli. It was much before this that we found a near vertical 15-20’ deep washout in the trail that prevented any further progress. With some insane winds, we were fortunate to find this spot tucked away offering a little bit of shelter for the night.

We then detoured around the wash and made it to the start of Top of the World by around 9AM. This was Easter Jeep Safari week and we noticed 30-45 wild jeeps all gearing up to hit the trail so we thought we better get out in front of them. As we started, the snow started falling creating very tricky and slippery conditions. I was never a believer in ATRAC until this day. Wow, it was getting me through things I couldn’t believe. If you've done the gatekeeper at TOW, you know what I'm talking about. This thing (along with a little bravery and momentum) was digging for traction everywhere it could to drag itself up this ledge climb.

This spot below just before reaching the summit of top of the world was a little rough on the GX. I slid about 4’ to the right from where I was into this spot. Thankfully, I just had some plastidipped cheap wheels as they ended up getting very personal with the rocks on the right...As did my front and rear bumpers

Yeah that's far enough...Amazingly we just barely beat the Jeep group to the top. They all passed us on the way down and some of the guys couldn't believe we were out there in expensive mom cars. It was singlehandedly the most tiring and stressful day wheeling of my life. My friend was also equally gassed and we balled out on food and drinks at Antica Forma once we made it back to Moab.

After this photo, it was a slip and slide down. For not having sliders, I should have been a little more worried, but thankfully we made it off the trails without any body damage. I destroyed my oem front skid plate and whatever you'd call the little piece behind it, nicked my KDSS skid/cover plate, drug control arms and rear diff, my friend bent one of his rear LCAs, smacked the crap out of our hitches, broke the trailer wiring covers off of our hitches, and each of us suffered cosmetic damage to pretty much all of our wheels. Oh and I had a log in a mudhole on the Kokopelli flip up and smack my mirror cover and slightly dent my driver's door in a spot (which was easily fixed)...Fun times though

When designing the swing out, I was originally perturbed by the license plate surround on the rear door. It really pushes a swing out further out than it needs to be, but at that spacing, the rear window continued to open. A nice bonus I found as I had assumed wouldn't continue opening with the tire set at that height.

Oh yeah, the fall before this trip, the GX was a little overdue for some maintenance around 100k miles. I had hit a relatively hard red clay ledge/ditch on a backroad in Oklahoma at some speed where come to find out, the bolt securing my coilover to the LCA on the passenger side bent and somehow or simultaneously elongated the hole in the LCA for that bolt creating a squeak and reduced ride height. I also had a rear wheel bearing going bad...probably from clearing a triple train track jump at a moderately substantial speed (I'll tell you, those BP51s really handle some stuff). So I took the GX down to my parents' again and threw it on the lift and got to work. I had also just scored a great deal on a Fox 2.5 DSC lift with Icon Delta Joint UCAs (from the guy I previously bought my BP51s from) with only 10k miles on it. I also ordered in some DRT spindle gussets too for peace of mind, but after the impact on the passenger front corner the truck took, I can't imagine what it would take to bend a spindle gusset. While things were apart I also put in new front wheel bearing units as well and gave everything a thorough inspection. I bought a lifetime alignment service when I originally lifted the truck and for all the talk about IFS Toyotas losing their alignments, I cannot believe mine is still spot on. Maybe it's from sticking to 33" tires and not going larger.

I then tossed on a set of ARB skids that a friend was selling for a good deal. I also began designing a hidden winch mount/low profile center section style bumper for a friend who had chopped the bumper on his GX. I go back in forth in my mind of bumper chops. They do open up some nice clearance but can also open up a can of worms when it comes to water easily reaching the intake with the wheel well liners trimmed up.

I then bought a prinsu pro rack as part of their Black Friday sale

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

With the hidden winch mount and everything designed, I had some parts cut and bent and started installing these on my truck and a friend's truck. He didn't care about the winch so he left that bit off, but it works with a HF winch tray. The winch shown below is too tall and a solenoid box relocation kit would be needed. At this point I was a few months out from beginning my Prado conversion so I kind of let this project die as I don't have any big urges to chop up the Prado parts or wheel it as hard as I have once I get everything freshened up.

Annoyingly, one of the three days I drove my truck with the bumper chopped and nothing in front of it, a semi on the highway one night ejected a piece of 2x4 out from underneath it. I barely had time to even process what was going on, but felt it hit and had hoped it had hit my skids...unfortunately not, but it didn't cause a leak and I'm fortunate there. Just a note of caution to anyone trimming up their bumpers

Basically just cut off everything that was scraped

You may notice I kind of borrowed the vent design from the GX550's vent layout...thought that would be a cool touch

And also around this time, my JW Offroad DOM tube slider kit came in. I don't have a bender and with the kit on sale, I barely would have been able to buy all the materials and start designing things for the same price. Great quality kit and easy to weld up. I opted for the cover plates to help protect the doors from debris flung up from the tires and be somewhat of a step for loading the roof rack as my 80 series' sliders have led to some near misses when it comes to slipping around on tubes.

Everything sandblasted, painted, and installed ready for a long weekend trip out west with the skis on the roof and bike in the back.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

So sometime in the fall of '23, after a couple months of researching vendors, sources, and quality, a few friends and myself ordered up 5 kits to convert our trucks and another truck. I added a spare kit to the order just in case something were to be damaged beyond repair in shipping...which was the first stressful part of this process. There was an issue with freight forwarders and the one I had been working with being replaced with another one at the last minute. Somehow all of the parts were shipped and dropped off at a cosmetic beauty supply warehouse outside of Dallas. Fortunately, my boss was super cool when I originally asked him if I could ship all of this stuff to his freight dock. He even let me use his trailer for a couple runs up to my house where I proceeded to fill up my two car garage and some of my basement with parts.

Tow mirrors would have been really nice with this trailer.

Not even all unloaded yet...

I then delivered three of the kits to my friends and put my stuff off to the side until I could work on it.

Then this past spring, my parents and brother wanted to get out to Utah for a family trip as we hadn't done anything together in awhile so I was more than happy to show them some of the sweet spots my friends and I had enjoyed. We ran Top of the World, thankfully in the dry, and it was a much easier and more fun experience. We also ran a few other trails and hit the sand dunes, and my dad was more than impressed by how well the GX got through stuff

New center section doing work after dropping off a sand dune....probably would have lost the front bumper had it not been chopped

I then had some wheels come in that my friends and I more or less did a group buy on from overseas. 17x8 -10 evo corse style wheels. A little lighter than evo's as they are made to FIA minimum weight requirements for actual racing and much cheaper so damaging them offroad won't be as painful. I currently have 1.25" wheel spacers on in the below picture from my old set up...those were quickly removed

Then starting June 2024, I began the teardown and prep for the Prado conversion. Look at this intake...if you're chopping your bumper and wheel well liners and splashing through water, you should be very concerned...

Few door dings and whatnots to smooth out. Along the back door edge, only I had the paint blended starting around that blue tape.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Fresh out of the paint booth. My little Toyota pick up was a real work horse hauling parts around and being a great DD during this process.

I'm pretty fortunate to have a 2 car garage in the area I live, but man, you can never have too much space. I had parts in my living room and bedroom for about a week as I was going through all of this stuff trying to stay organized.

New rear door going on

I was close to just refurbing my headlights and blacking them out, but I'm so glad I went through with this swap. Was kind of annoying at times, but totally worth it in the end. And now having done it, would be much quicker/easier.

Ordered some new 2018/2019+ aftermarket wheel well liners hoping they'd match since I knew the earlier ones didn't match, but they still aren't quite perfect with holes in different locations and a bit of extra length.

This hood's shape really shows off that peridot mica way better than the last

And here it is out in Southern Missouri last weekend as I was taking the long way back to KC from NWA. I still need to get the rear window tinted to match, run a reverse camera from the GROM Vline2 to the rear door, do a final polish on the truck / paint correction on the quarter panels, ceramic coat it, and do a clear bra on the hood. I'm going to wait until this fall when it cools down to do all of that.

 

[r2m]

Wow! You've been busy! Looking great!
As many will probably post, love that color!

 

[RJinVA]

Looks pretty amazing, never realized you're also in the KC area. I'm the starfire pearl 460 rolling on Nomad Saharas, I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for this Prado beaut

 

[GrizzlyClint]

Man I love that Prado front end. Rig looks amazing!

 

[Rednexus]

Great looking rig! Love that color as well. FYI we have lots of good wheeling down here in the Ozarks, but very few Toyotas.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

Great looking rig! Love that color as well. FYI we have lots of good wheeling down here in the Ozarks, but very few Toyotas.

Where about in the Ozarks? I used to get out to the OZNF and Ouachitas a few times a year for wheeling trips, but my friends and I have all generally been pretty busy with life and haven't made it out in awhile...Good times though

 

[Rednexus]

Where about in the Ozarks? I used to get out to the OZNF and Ouachitas a few times a year for wheeling trips, but my friends and I have all generally been pretty busy with life and haven't made it out in awhile...Good times though

I live in Southeast Missouri. Quite a bit of good wheeling in Blairs Creek, along the inundation area of Clearwater Lake, etc. SEMO is the emptiest quarter of the Missouri Ozarks.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

I live in Southeast Missouri. Quite a bit of good wheeling in Blairs Creek, along the inundation area of Clearwater Lake, etc. SEMO is the emptiest quarter of the Missouri Ozarks.

Ah yeah the SE corner of Missouri is one I haven’t even been out to yet. I usually venture out into the Ozark south east of Fayetteville, AR. I’ve been wanting to get out to Mark Twain though

 

[jdam]

I love this thing. What did you do with the old carrier? And of the two, was the door mount tire worth it over the fabbed mount? (Outside of the whole front and back Prado thing)

 

[windnsea00]

Love the color!

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS Jr]

I love this thing. What did you do with the old carrier? And of the two, was the door mount tire worth it over the fabbed mount? (Outside of the whole front and back Prado thing)

The old carrier is just sitting in my basement. Last winter on it was hard on it, and really needs to be sandblasted since I basically scuffed it up and painted it a day or two before leaving on a trip.

I’d 100% say the door is worth it. I love how everything opens in a single movement. Losing the pop up glass when sleeping in the back kind of sucks, but that has me dreaming of some gullwing windows in the back now.

Not to mention it also brings the tire in way closer to the body so bike racks and trailer interference (trailers with spare tires mounted on the tongue) should be a lot less likely if not a no issue.

With the swing out and pop up glass, I could still get in the back fairly quickly but it’s limited. For instance, lifting up groceries/gear through the window and setting them on top of the platform is just asking for things to slide around and is still a pita. I’d typically end up having to open everything up anyways at the end of the day to reach things.

I will say the swing out did open up some options though due to its utility. I’d typically attach my mountain bike’s front wheel to the other side whenever id use my roof mount for it. Also easy to mount flag poles for the dunes and whatnot to it as well. Pretty sure it’ll be fairly easy to rig something up on the new set up though

 

[r2m]

The old carrier is just sitting in my basement. Last winter on it was hard on it, and really needs to be sandblasted since I basically scuffed it up and painted it a day or two before leaving on a trip.

I’d 100% say the door is worth it. I love how everything opens in a single movement. Losing the pop up glass when sleeping in the back kind of sucks, but that has me dreaming of some gullwing windows in the back now.

Not to mention it also brings the tire in way closer to the body so bike racks and trailer interference (trailers with spare tires mounted on the tongue) should be a lot less likely if not a no issue.

With the swing out and pop up glass, I could still get in the back fairly quickly but it’s limited. For instance, lifting up groceries/gear through the window and setting them on top of the platform is just asking for things to slide around and is still a pita. I’d typically end up having to open everything up anyways at the end of the day to reach things.

I will say the swing out did open up some options though due to its utility. I’d typically attach my mountain bike’s front wheel to the other side whenever id use my roof mount for it. Also easy to mount flag poles for the dunes and whatnot to it as well. Pretty sure it’ll be fairly easy to rig something up on the new set up though

View attachment 3708812

Regarding your comment about not being able to open the rear glass when sleeping, unless you really need the hatch to completely open, there are some supports you can purchase that props the window open a few inches.
For you, you seem creative enough that you should be able to come up with a little widget to prop it open.

Now, about the gull wing rear windows, you may want to consider if you'll ever want to add MOLLE rear quarter panels for stowing gear. If you do, that's about all the windows would be good for, ventilation, since the MOLLE panels will obstruct your access to the back.
Personally, I LOVE the Victory MOLLE panels and rear shelf I have. I have them loaded with gear that was previously on the rear deck. Now it's all nice and neatly strapped to the panels!
Here are some pic's of my layout starting at post #210: Builds - R²M 2013 GX 460 Overland Build - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/r-m-2013-gx-460-overland-build.1104719/page-11

 

[suitcase]

Love it! wish I had the skills to fab stuff up .