New Ride

[theferg]

Long story short: sold the 4Runner on Dec 27th, was sad for a week, bought a Tacoma Tuesday night, am now stoked. Let the fun begin!--again.

2001 Tacoma Dbl Cab
3.4L V6
Supercharged
TRD 4wd
107k miles
bonestock

The build plan for this is not going to be too surprising for anyone, I'd imagine. It's going to be real similar to my old 4Runner (It's weird saying "old 4Runner"...) and similar to a lot of the expedition style Tacomas around this place. I'm stealing all their ideas and wrapping them up into my own.

-Ferg-

The old:

The new:

 

[StevenS]

Being a Tacoma owner, I offer points for your current project. But dude, that was a sweet 4Runner. I would have just traded you my Tacoma for it and saved you the trouble.

S

 

[BattleWagon]

Damn, shoulda just swapped all your goodies off your Runner and sold it stock. I love the 80 rims on it.

 

[theferg]

Being a Tacoma owner, I offer points for your current project. But dude, that was a sweet 4Runner. I would have just traded you my Tacoma for it and saved you the trouble.

S

Damn, shoulda just swapped all your goodies off your Runner and sold it stock. I love the 80 rims on it.

Tell me about it! I actually wasn't sure I was going to get a Tacoma when I put the 4Runner up for sale. I was actually seriously looking at '99-04 Frontier Crew cabs so was quite sure I wasn't going to be able to use anything from the 4Runner anyway. Started looking more at the Tacos actually the day the guy flew in to seal the deal and take the 4Runner back to Missouri. Great guy btw--the 4Runner went to a great home.

-Ferg-

 

[Jacket]

Nice! Did you just get sick of the wagon? They almost look like twins, minus the cargo area.

 

[MTDewX8]

I am on the 4ruuner/Taco, T100 fence. but leaning towards the 4 runner due to dog and family.

I have noticed a lot of 4runners are putting there spare tire on the back rather keeping it down under so why may I ask?

sweet runner for sure, but you already know how much fun there is to come with the new toy.
have fun

 

[brian2sun]

I have noticed a lot of 4runners are putting there spare tire on the back rather keeping it down under so why may I ask?

3 reasons..
1) The spare under there reduces ground clearance a lot.
2) Without the spare there you have a bunch of room to mount air tanks, a fuel cell (or relocate the stock gas tank), or anything else.
3) A full size spare (33 or bigger) won't fit down there anyways.

Ferg,
Looks like your runner had a CBI rear and an ARB front bumper from the pic (same ones I have)...

 

[MTDewX8]

I was thinking about that and even thought a what if, you were stuck in the much its easier to get to if you need too. thanks for the reply. I am about to jump on a 2000 5speed SR5 with an e-locker and 117k miles roughly (6k to top it off). so I am planning my list,(roof rack and hitch since it has neither) but in school so the list will be really long and take a long time to get to tit. lol

3 reasons..
1) The spare under there reduces ground clearance a lot.
2) Without the spare there you have a bunch of room to mount air tanks, a fuel cell (or relocate the stock gas tank), or anything else.
3) A full size spare (33 or bigger) won't fit down there anyways.

Ferg,
Looks like your runner had a CBI rear and an ARB front bumper from the pic (same ones I have)...

 

[theferg]

Nice! Did you just get sick of the wagon? They almost look like twins, minus the cargo area.

There were a bunch of reasons (mostly petty/preference) that started piling up against the 4Runner for me. Some main reasons were how it performed at high-speeds on desert roads with the tent on and a bunch of gear in the back. I wanted to get the tent down low. I wanted a longer wheel-base. I wanted to be able to one day put a solid axle up front without dealing with all the electronics that exists on the 01-02 4Runner (ABS/TRAC/VSC as well as the multi-mode or whatever they call it tcase) and without making it a hack job. I wanted to be able to haul stuff around (furniture, tools, rocks, firewood, etc etc) without playing tetris or worrying about tearing, scraping, scratching up the interior of my 4Runner or my wifes minivan. It's also a super added bonus that with the tent down-low on the back of the Tacoma (now and after it grows bigger), I will be able to pull in and out of my 7ft garage with the tent on and be able to use my ceiling hoist to pull it on and off. I couldn't do that with my 4Runner, it was so tall with the tent on, I needed about 7-8 more inches of door height to fit through with it on. Anyway, there's a lil view inside my head and my thought process...

I actually didn't go out trying to find a twin to the old 4Runner, but there seem to be a TON of silver 01-04 Taco DoubleCabs. The Taco build is going to be very similar to the 4Runner though actually. Hope to get the lift and wheels/tires and tent setup on it pretty soon. I'll throw up some details on it as I build it.

-Ferg-

 

[theferg]

Here's a couple daylight pics.

The PO did the grill. I've always preferred the stock grill over these Satoshi style grills, but its kinda grown on me a wee bit since I've had it.

 

[theferg]

Been trying to find an inexpensive way to get the tent mounted. I came up with the idea of using Thule false gutter mounts with gutter mount towers. Hadn't seen anyone really do it this way, so I decided to just give it a try.

The false gutters are Thule 542s. The gutter feet I used are the 953s and they are 11" tall. (I wanted to use the 387s which are only 8" tall, but I happened across the 953s for a killer deal so I'm giving them a try.) And the bars I used are the 65".

The tent floor sits about 12" above the top of the bedsides and about 26" above the bed floor. When closed, the tent sticks about 3" - 4" above the roof of the cab.

The bars stick 6-3/8" past the tent on each side, but the fender flares stick out much farther and so do the side-mirrors so I'm not really worried about them being too wide. I may cut the bars down later though if I don't find good use for them sticking out past the tent.

I'm pretty sure I'll be stepping down to the 8" towers, but this works for now. I drilled out the false gutters to take M8 size hardware as the stuff that came with it was about half that. Otherwise, the whole thing is super sturdy and isn't going to go anywhere without some massive force. Actually it seems to me that the weakest part now is the puny 4 bolts that bolt the tent floor to the tent crossbars--I'm going to add a few more bolts there.

 

[IanB]

That's pretty sweet! Still leaves the box open for all your gear. The 8" legs would be better, get the tent down out of the wind on the road a bit, but this is pretty slick!

 

[womacje]

Killer setup! I dig it. I'm recommending that same type of setup to a customer, that just picked up the same truck.