Final product in action. One thing to note here, don't clean the switch with anything but water... the lettering came off very easy but I can still see when I have the highs or lows on based on the color of the bulb just like you can see on your seat heater switch.
The next thing I tackled was building a drawer, I grew tired trying to accommodate things I stow around in the back. I looked at what the market had to offer and no-one offered what I wanted. A single drawer for third row that only takes the space of one seat so you could have one seat available in third row AND be able to easily unattach drawer and pull out of the truck without much hassle.
I came up with various designs spend a lot of hours and money that could of gone to a nice ready to install drawer from the market place that I would end up not being happy with because I really wanted it to be easily removed and only take up one spot.
Here are the final two models I came up with and the one I have today.
1. Honestly even though I used 500 lb expensive locking in sliders...other than the added benefit that they are locking, I don't think they are needed, any slider over 150 lbs will work with an added lock. You could probably fill the drawer up with concrete and it still wouldn't add to 500lbs.
2. Use good wood like cabinet grade Birch. I should of started with that and not pine
3. Measure twice cut once
4. Probably the one thing that I found most annoying was how to anchor the thing and after many purchases of different tie-down hardware I ended up using the stock anchors (3). The only downside is that you will leave one corner unanchored but I found that with 3 it was enough for the drawer to not move at all.
The next upgrade was the sound. The cruiser CD player was not functional and I was getting bored of radio stations. I went with the NEX4000 wired a backup camera and replaced speakers. There are several threads on where to find the backup switch and found some threads to claim there being one at the ECU, I did not find it. I purchased both volumes of the Service book and the wiring schematics and found one at the driver side kick panel.
Hey man, i have a back up camera also going to the kick panel. What color wire did you plug into as the one used did not work me. Not able to tell fro the pic...
Next was suspension, I did not like how the cruiser rolled on the highway it was just too much. I decided to go with the Icon's stage 1 as this is a daily driven cruiser with most of it highway/city driving and occasional beach/light offroad drives. I combined the icons with the EMU 2.5 torsion bars and EMU 1214 springs
Lessons learned here.
1. Have a buddy.
2. Re-indexing is not difficult just follow a few of the already posted threads on here
3. My truck is not a northern truck but if yours is day before soak all bolts up with w40 or choice of lubricant
4. Drive the truck and adjust the torsion bolts. Repeat 2-3 times.
I will add, this was by-far the best upgrade I had done to the truck up until that time. The way it drove and drives now is absolutely incredible. I did not expect the ride to be improved as much as it did. Tight yet comfortable.
I will also point out I did not put in a diff drop and after much research deemed it unnecessary however I did re-boot my cv axles with new OEM toyota boots and have had no issues no leaks and no ride issues as well. I completely took the axles apart cleaned the internals eat-off-of clean and re-greased. While I was in there I replaced the UCA joints boots with OEM ones.
Hey man, i have a back up camera also going to the kick panel. What color wire did you plug into as the one used did not work me. Not able to tell fro the pic...
Its been a while but I can dig it up for you. I can also post the schematic of that kick panel.
On another topic I did the Whale wing delete. I never liked it, it rattled leaked and was going to be in the way of my roof rack. Thankfully mine was only mounted by the third light mounting screws so I had a clean hatch no support brackets to deal with, the entire wing was supported by 3m tape on the sides and the mounting holes of the 3rd brake light. I ordered an OEM new light to replace and removed the whale wing no more leaks or rattles.
Replaced valve cover seals OEM, a slight leak was developing. Not much to mention here other than the driver side takes slightly longer because there is more to take off. Budget about 2 hrs.
Something others have asked. I did not replace the "o" rings they did not come in the OEM gasket kit and they seemed to be okay just a little hardened. Amazon does sell a kit that includes the gasket and the O-rings if you want to do that.
Tires I decided on the 285/75 Duratrac's really liked how quiet the ride is. I'm really happy with them so far. Wanted the stock look with a little aggression.
Took a trip to Big Bend shortly after all these upgrades. Awesome trip, this is by the way the trip where my Cruiser got the nickname "Aircruiser" by a couple of clowns riding on the trip.
After rigging up a custom relay set up which worked nicely for a while for my fogs. I decided to toss it and buy a pre-wired Bussmann setup sold buy a guy on ebay. This would set me up for future winch, rack lights etc. I really liked the quality of it, dropped it in tossed the old relay setup.
I installed the bussmann fusebox mostly to handle future rack lights, fridge, winch and several other switches. Because of that I decided to not use the existing boot and instead used a new boot, I was afraid of where to drill but after investigation I found an "all clear" section here:
