2000 Extended Cab Tacoma, mild, long-term overland build

mbrewer

mbrewer
My girlfriend and I are planning to live out of it for a while, 6 months at least, maybe a couple of years, starting in about 3 months.
I'm looking at mostly highway miles, initial use at least will be traveling the U.S. The last time I did this (for ~9 months) I found that I liked to boondock *way* back. I frequently found myself doing things a cross-over can't do, and doing it solo. I also stealth-ed every so often when I went to visit civilization so not looking like I'm on an expedition is a plus.
Given all that I'm targeting good gas mileage (light), good highway handling, but fairly capable and robust offroad... That's why I ended up with a Tacoma. I've capped my budget at whatever I can sell my lightly built 2015 JK for.

DSC01070 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr
(Sorry for the driveway photo... it's my DD, but I've only done a couple trips since I got it, and forgot my camera on those)

Base truck: 2000, Extended cab, Manual, V6, SR5, TRD. I got it with 75K miles, frame is flawless, everything else is very solid. Engine purrs like a kitten, though takes a few cranks to spin up... getting better though as I drive it.
Mods so far:
- Undercoated the body with fluidfilm as soon as I got it home including the insides of the rails. I used 5.5 cans of fluid-film total.
- I've swapped all the fluids out: oil, brake, clutch, and coolant (someone used green stuff, had to flush that out). New wipers.
- Mounted a fire extinguisher behind the driver's seat (amusingly, I was able to reuse holes from the last owner :D)
- Disabled the door ding
- Removed the dealer-installed security system... I hate the autolocking doors
- Removed the door lights so I don't kill my battery
- Got a Brand new Leer 122 cap with windoors and roof-rack installed
- Painted and mounted a Trailgear rear tube bumper, ziptied the license plate and license-plate light in place
- Installed a cheapo trailer wiring harness
- Home-built Platform sitting on the edges of the bed (couple 2x4's and some 1/4" ply) ... similar tohttp://www.blog.smalladventures.net/2013/01/truck-platform-take-3.html.
- Reflectix lined the cap

Plans:
- Highlift mount to the side of the bed, over the wheel-well
- All-pro 3" lift bilstein 5100 suspension front and rear. This'll be ~1.5-2" lift at full weight... the goal here is to avoid having to armor by having a bit of extra clearance.
- Tailgate seal
- Debadge the whole truck (I've gotten some, but there's more to do)

Then it depends on budget. Possibilities:
- I loved having a winch on my Jeep, so I'm considering trail-gear bumpers all around and a superwinch 9600 lb with syinthetic line. Not the best for stealthing of course. On the other hand, I can always tie to the axle and use a highlift as a winch... slow and more dangerous, but it works.... usually.
- I've also been toying with doing something on the roof. We're going to be a bit short on space once we throw in 2 guitars, backpacking, snowshoeshoing, archery, and rockclimbing gear, plus food etc. for 2 weeks of dispersed camping. Roof-boxes are awesome, but I'm afraid I'll take it out on an overhanging branch. I've been looking in to roof baskets, particularly to go over the cab, but it's all pretty daunting.
- I want a rain awning of some sort. Right now I'm thinking we dirtbag it and use a tarp and some hacked up poles we tie to the roof-rack... but I'm still poking around. I was also toying with making something myself

The truck came with 31/10.5-15R Cooper ATR tires. It looks like 33/10.5-15R tires would be ideal for me (I ran 265/75 on my old 4-banger, I don't think I'd mind a little higher gears), a bit smaller than 255/85/R16 and narrow than 33/12.5-R15 or 285/75R16, and subsequently seem to have fewer problems... Sadly nothing skinnier than 10.5 seems to be out there anymore for 15" rims. I adore the duratraks on my jeep, but they aren't available in that size. So, my thought is to wear out the cooper's I've got, and someday I'd move to a set of 33/10.5R15 BFG KO2s.
 
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mbrewer

mbrewer
Removed the security system

The security system locked the doors every time I started the car. That behavior uses battery power just when you most need it, is just plain annoying, and if you start the car with the door open and step out of it, risks locking you out of your car. ICK!

While trying to understand the DRL hack (which as it turns out is in a completely different location on a 2000 than a 2002), I had discovered the box... which was also pushing part of the ventilation system apart under the driver's side dash. It had tons of confusing wires running to it. So I was a bit nervous.

Well, today I just started unplugging things. After unplugging everything from the mysterious black box I tested starting the car, it didn't work (which I expected)... I took the wire that looked like it had been cut, connected it, and the car started (this is the black ignition wire). Awesome! I then walked around the car testing lights, power locks, power windows, etc. Everything I found worked.

So then I just started pulling things out. After I pulled tap off and got things apart enough I found that only about 10 wires ran from the original truck to the security system. I was worried lots of these had been cut, but except for the actual ignition wire everything else was done with vampire taps. So, as it turned out I could just unplug all the wires from the taps, done! No wonder everything worked without the box plugged in.

This is before I soldered and wrapped the jumper-wire I used to repair the ignition. The box had been right on top of this duct... just hanging loose. The blue connector is the one I disconnected earlier to disable the door ding. Note that it doesn't disable the door lights, or the "you left your lights on" buzzer.
IMG_20160115_124004 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

There was a little black box ziptied just under the ignition switch... I cut the zipties and pulled that out.

A lot of stuff was also wired in to this box. To get to it I pulled the box out. There's a bolt on the bottom that's easy to find, then if you push the valance around the sash near the door inward a bit you can access another bolt. With those two disconnected there's just a little plastic mount that'll pop right out. With that loose you can work it out a little so you can get to the backside to disconnect the rest.
IMG_20160115_123943 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

There's a little light that was added to the dash too. If I pull it I'll have a hole, and maybe I'll do a mod eventually that want's a little light, so I coiled up the extra wire going to it and ziptied that out of the way.
IMG_20160115_123949 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

I think the one I have is aftermarket, probably dealer installed. The last owner of my Taco was paranoid. It also has a locking gas-cap AND locking gas-cap door. Even in the city *both* seems a little overkill to me? Anyway... I'd set aside a lot of time to do this little project, just in case it went south, and it turned out to be basically trivial. While I was at it I also pulled the bulbs out of my door lights so I can leave my doors open without killing the battery.

Moral of the story is, if you have one of these obnoxious security system and hate it... go ahead and rip it out, it's super easy.
 
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mbrewer

mbrewer
My cap finally came in so I went to get it installed. I drove through a snowstorm to pick it up:
DSC01053 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

It was in a garage for a bit while they installed it, but there's still snow left in the bed. I had Leer 122 with windoors once before, but I like the slider design on this one better. The sliding part is only 2/3's the high of the window, but it's half the length.
DSC01055 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

I got a power block installed. I was hoping it'd mount somewhere better, I'll have to move it as my platform is going to sit on that lip.
DSC01056 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

The dome-light design also seems to have changed, looks like it'll work fine though.
DSC01059 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

Looks are pretty far down my priority list, but it's always nice if it doesn't look terrible. My girlfriend likes it too.
DSC01054 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

I've got to leave town for work for a bit, but next on the list is the platform, reflectix lining the cap, and actually mounting the highlift.

On a side note, this is the first time driving this truck in the snow. The cooper tires are okay in the snow, but definitely not great. They don't hold a candle to the duratraks I had on my Jeep, and seem a bit worse than the BFG TA KOs I had on my last taco.... though they are smaller than both. I'd never driven a taco with ABS in the snow - It really doesn't seem like an improvement. It's probably Toyota's first generation of ABS and it seems like threshold braking still works a lot better than flooring it.
 
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mbrewer

mbrewer
This weekend's been productive. I painted the trail-gear bumper at a friend's house, and installed it with help from my girlfriend:

IMG_3257 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

I washed it with mineral spirits, sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper, washed it with spirits again, I did 2 coats of primer trying to coat the whole thing, flipped it and 2 coats of primer again, 2 coats of paint, flipped it, 2 more coats of paint. 20 minutes between each, excepting, 40 minutes between priming and painting. I waited overnight and mounted it the bumper the next day. The weather isn't perfect here, so it didn't set up very well and I scraped some of the paint off unfortunately, I'll touch it up shortly.

I don't have a picture of the license plate, but we simply ziptied it on. Angie came up with some of the jury-rigging and with a little futzing we got one of the original license plate light housings ziptied next to it so it's legally lit and everything. I just pulled the other light-bulb off the second connector, covered the connector in electrical tape, and ziptied it up out of the way.

I'm pretty happy with the new bumper, it does make the truck a touch wider, but it's not bad... and it gives me a nice step on the side to reach the roof.

You may notice all the badging is gone from the tailgate on the right-side of the image, but I haven't finished getting all the gunk off yet. It turns out the easiest way to remove the badges on this generation is with a fingernail and googone. I also removed the TRD stickers while waiting for the paint to dry, for that a hair-dryer is key, then goo-gone again to remove the junk left behind. I intend to remove all the badging eventually, it just takes a while.
 
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mbrewer

mbrewer
The next day we built the platform. It's similar to the design on my last truck that I linked too earlier, but optimized a bit differently. This one is tiny bit lighter, a little flatter, and definitely stronger, but slightly more annoying to take apart and put together, and doesn't stow away in the truck easily when it's apart. That was a conscious tradeoff.

Here's the final result
DSC01060 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

You can see how little material went in to it. Because of the dimensions needed we used 2 sheets of plywood, that was the primary expensive. This cost about $58 in wood and screws from lows (and we have a lot of ply left over)
DSC01061 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

The blocks are screwed to the plywood on top, and hold the 2x4's from rotating and thus falling off the lip of the truck. The plywood slides in and sideways so it seats underneath the windowsill. This makes for a tight fit, but means we can pull it out fairly easilly if needed.
DSC01063 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr
DSC01064 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

After it was constructed one of us climbed in and marked out where the latches hit the wood. We used a saw to cut down at the edges, then drilled a series of holes along the button of the notch. Then we hit the block with a hammer (the blunt-side of an axe actually) to split it off. A little work with a rasp and it was pretty clean. The one in the image was actually done by Angie... This platform was her first wood-working project. Her notch came out cleaner than mine.
DSC01062 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

Angie's parent's had a mattress laying around that she wanted to try fitting in the truck. We gave it a shot... it's super comfy, but uses up a bit more of the headroom than we're happy with, so we pulled it out again. It's SOOO comfy that we were tempted to keep it anyway.
DSC01065 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr
 

mbrewer

mbrewer
Just put in my order for an all-pro lift. It's simple, rear bilstein 5100 shocks, all-pro springs, brake-hose extension, front bilstein 5100 adjustable coilovers. It comes with a shackle flip-kit... sure why not *shrug*.
I haven't seen another decent spring lift comparable in price (~$1400). I hear a lot about old man EMU, and I'm sure their stuff is great, but it looks to run just a bit more and I think their coilovers are fixed. This way if I throw a new bumper and winch up front I can level the truck without spacers.

I had the all-pro kit on my 2002 and liked the ride, but without the shackle flip I think. It's an easy install and does the job. My current shocks feel really mushy when I hit a bump or swerve... this should improve handling drastically along with giving me a little height
 
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irish_11

Explorer
Cool build. I have a very similar truck that I have taken all over (1999 xtra cab) and would trust it anywhere. I do have some thoughts on the camper setup: (please take them with a grain of salt)

  • Are you going to add in a center support to the bed? I think it might start to dip over time and that would be bad down the road. You could put it on a hinge and have it fold for easier removal and better storage when outside the truck.
  • You should probably glue in carpet to the underside of the cap. It will allow for a better climate control and eliminate the cap building up condensation that will drip on you as you sleep, soaking all your bedding. Ask me how I know...
  • Careful not leaving anything on the bed at that height as you drive. Since there is no lip in height between the bed deck and windows anything rolling around could be thrown into a window and break it. And those are not cheap to fix. You might want to build a small window guard for the sides and back to prevent this if you are planning on utilizing the space up top for storage during the day.


Good luck with the build! Should be fun
 

mbrewer

mbrewer
Cool build. I have a very similar truck that I have taken all over (1999 xtra cab) and would trust it anywhere. I do have some thoughts on the camper setup: (please take them with a grain of salt)

  • Are you going to add in a center support to the bed? I think it might start to dip over time and that would be bad down the road. You could put it on a hinge and have it fold for easier removal and better storage when outside the truck.
  • You should probably glue in carpet to the underside of the cap. It will allow for a better climate control and eliminate the cap building up condensation that will drip on you as you sleep, soaking all your bedding. Ask me how I know...
  • Careful not leaving anything on the bed at that height as you drive. Since there is no lip in height between the bed deck and windows anything rolling around could be thrown into a window and break it. And those are not cheap to fix. You might want to build a small window guard for the sides and back to prevent this if you are planning on utilizing the space up top for storage during the day.

Good luck with the build! Should be fun

sagging: No need, that's why it uses 2x4's for support. I slept in my last one for 8 months with no problems. One of the design goals was to have the full open space of the bed for equipment/gear, the more you break it up, the less fits and the less flexible the setup is.

Drippage: Interesting that you had that problem. I Had carpet in my last cap. My plan is to glue in reflectix, and then see how that goes. I might glue something over that, like maybe a thin layer of felt, but the reflectix should work a bit better if I leave it bare so I wanted to try that first.

Missiles trying to break windows: Yeah... It'd be bad to have anything heavy there anyway though, in an accident that same equipment would become a missile heading for the back of the driver and passenger's head, straight through the rear window of the truck. Gear will be stowed below the platform, just bedding above it, which should keep things safe enough.

Actually, one thought with this platform was to drill through the 2x2 and the 2x4 and pin it in place. The 2x4's, because they are rotated in are actually trapped unless they can spin... so the platform could help with gear retention in an accident, keeping things down in the bed so they can't fly through the rear window. I haven't decided the best way to tie the ply to the 2x4s yet though, so decided to just build it and figure that out later. As it turns out the ply sits just under those windows which gives it more natural retention than I'd expected... so that may make it easier.

Thanks! And great to see someone's reading the thread :).
 

mbrewer

mbrewer
Reflectix

Reflectix lined the cap today... Took a lot longer than I thought. I'm really interested to see how well it works

Here's how it looks
DSC01068 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

Kind of had to piece it together a bit.
DSC01069 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

I glued it in with 100% silicon adhesive. I had to go back to lowes for a second tube.
DSC01067 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

I spent WAY too long standing at lowes trying to decide what to use as a glue. I did a little reading and someone pointed out that silicon holds well enough for a lot of automotive applications like this, but it also is possible to take apart if needed without damaging the fiberglass... I liked the sound of that, so figured I'd give it a try. It's fairly cold out right now so I had some trouble getting the stuff to set. I started with the main roof panel, which as it turns out is the hardest one, 'cause it's completely vertical it just wants to fall off. I had to hold it in place for a while, patting it back on constantly until the silicone set... but it worked. I have some foil tape I haven't decided if I'll use yet - I figured I'd let the silicone set up better first so I don't accidentally rip the stuff off trying to tape it down.

To help keep it a bit warmer I tried several things... First I closed up the truck, opened the window to the cab, and left the engine and heater running to try and warm it up. That was pretty stupid and I got a headache pretty quick from the silicone curing. In the end leaving the screens and tailgate window open but the truck running with the heater on and the window between the cab and cap open was the best compromise. It both kept the truck warmer so the silicone set better, and helped flush the fumes out of the truck.

I'm really curious to try camping in this, and find out if I'll get soaked (as irish_11 suggested), and whether it will be any warmer. With a little luck I might be finally actually taking this truck for more than a short joy-ride next weekend. It's my daily driver, but I don't drive much except for trips, and I haven't gotten to do many trips lately. As a result I've put less than 500 miles on it since I got it.... It'll be nice to get some photos of it up here that aren't in a driveway.
 
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mbrewer

mbrewer
Jack's First Camping trip

Well, Jack went on his first camping trip. We spent a 3-day weekend in the woods. We bushwhacked, practiced archery, went on an 8 mile run down dirt roads, and of course just relaxed and hung out... got some good reading done.
This is a site on a forest road just 20 minutes from where I live.
DSC01077

It rained on sunday, so we decided to try a dirtbag awning and see how it went... it wasn't ideal, it dripped a bit, probably partly because that tarp did 1500 miles on the AT, and numerous other trips. To do a dirtbag tarp over the back I think I want to get the tarp a little higher so it doesn't wrinkle up.
DSC01080

Angie cooking some tofu stir-fry over a fire. In the past I've mostly set the pot in the coals, but we've been doing more tripod cooking lately and really loving it.
DSC01084

The goal of this trip was actually primarilly to get the truck a little test run, and see how well all our stuff would fit. We've got to fit everything we own in this thing. Here's what we learned:
- The current suspension did better than I expected, but it still sways more than I'm happy with... I already had the all-pro on the way, and I'm happy I do.
- A table and chairs would definitely be nice, this was kind of in our heads from previous trips, but it's different when you go out and see it for real.
- We can't quite fit all the gear we want. Everything fit fine this time, but we left out the climbing gear and a few other items, and I'd like to have space for projects too... tanned deer-hides, bows I'm making, etc. That's not to mention that table and chairs in the last bullet. The plan is to get a roof-box or something similar... it's just so pricey that I've been stalling.
- The boxes our clothes are supposed to go in turn out to be about 1/2" too tall! This was a bummer, they fit under the 2x4 nearest the tailgate, but not *quite* the next one... except barely on the right side (because caps aren't perfectly even and symetrical). So, we'll have to go out and find some different bins.
- The reflectix was not an issue but also did nothing on this trip... it only got down to low 30s the whole weekend, so pretty toasty weather really, particularly for febuary in virginia
- We haven't gotten the dirt-bag awning to be satisfactory, but want to play a little more before blowing the money needed for a commercial awning that'd work in rain.
- I bailed on the plan of putting the highlift in the bed... I'm going to pick up some U-bolts and attach it to the roof instead, like I did on my last rig. It's just not worth punching holes in the bed when putting it in the bed doesn't seem quite ideal for the way the boxes end up getting arranged.

The truck definitely meets our needs in it's current form. Now I just have to get rid of everything else... including my 2015 JK!
 
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mbrewer

mbrewer
Jeepers are always posting photos like this... The grocery store parking lot was kind of full and I couldn't resist taking this just to annoy jeepers with ;-)
IMG_3259
 

mbrewer

mbrewer
I got a roofbasket on there.
DSC01131 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

This is a "Curt"... so definitively mediocre quality. I read the amazon reviews and decided it would work for me for now. It was cheap ~$110.00 so good for deciding if this is what I want.
In retrospect I should have gotten a cap *without* a rack. Then I should've gotten one of the basket racks designed to mount to a cap, and mounted it on the cab... if I needed 2 I should've done it again for the cap, this would've resulted in a lower profile. But, once I'd invested in the rack on the cab I decided maybe I should just throw a basket up there and see how it goes.

As I new from the reviews, the mounting hardware was unusable, so I just picked up some u-bolts and bolted the thing down:
DSC01133 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

I also offset it a bit and bolted my highlift directly to the roof-rack as well. I had originally planned to put it inside, but anything I could think to do just took up a bit too much space in there, so in the end I did this:
DSC01134 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

The whole setup looks a little ungainly being that high - but my plans are mostly for lighter gear to go up there anyway, I have a lot of space inside. If I really like it and use it a lot maybe I'll move it to the cab, or even just put 2 racks up there.
 

mbrewer

mbrewer
In other news, we've got 6 weeks left to go. We've been emptying the house, there's hardly anything left. We've gotten rid of most of the furniture, just a table a mattress and a bed left to sell. A shelf to take up to Angie's parent's house, and one to take to goodwill. We're mostly living out of the boxes that'll go in the truck when we move.

We keep cutting it back and cutting it back - I need to toss just a few more items, but with the roof-basket it'll all fit fine at this point, it's just a matter of not having quite so much extra crap to push around.
 

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