mrjacksonhammer
New member
Hello ExPo! Long time lurker first post. Especially lately, I've been reading over ruined adventures' and desk to glory's builds for inspiration to prepare my 85 longbed yota for the adventures my wife and I are planning. The truck was purchased in June of 2014 and I did the bulk of the mods in December of the the same year. It's showing some signs of wear and some things will need to be upgraded or replaced, as well as some of the setup changed, prior to our upcoming trips. Mods I did originally are as follows: Bobbed the bed to shortbed length, RUF's and chevy 2wd 63's with a lazy shackle angle, high steer, 35's, 5.29's and a spartan in the rear, 14" front and 12" rear 5100's set up for mostly down travel, homebrew sliders and bumpers, rebuilt 84 early block 22r with 2 row chain, 261 duration cam, and just swapped all the goodies the 85 motor had from the previous owner (32/36, offy intake, some aftermarket header), MSD 6AL. The new motor ran a little hotter trying to turn the 35's up mountains, so later down the line at various times I put a stock replacement radiator, e fan, oil cooler, then an 88 v6 3 core sweet all aluminum radiator, and a 160 degree t stat. She runs cool now. That brings me to the current changes that I'm making to the truck. I've adventured a decent amount with it just throwing crap in the back as needed, but since we've started a dog family and want to bring them with us when we go places, that just won't work. Also, we would take her fairly new and nice Subaru out snow wheeling so the dogs can stay out of the elements, and that just doesn't work too well either. All in all life forces the changes to make the crawler into more of an expedition rig to suit my family's needs. I recently made a sleeping platform. To go with the sleeping platform, I purchased a taco camper shell that was pretty rough around the edges and am almost done making it livable. Our plans are to go to Connecticut from our home in New Mexico in October to attend our friend's wedding and to Baja in December. Both trips will be about 2 weeks. The truck will need 2 new tires (it got out of alignment and I waited a week to fix it, the fronts were chewed up pretty bad) also providing me with a fullsize spare. I may get a winch and a second battery to help make it function. We need some sort of sleeping pads. I need to figure out a spare mounting situation (open to input but leaning toward a swingout bumper set up if time/funds don't allow I may just throw my 235/75 on the roof). We need roof storage (open to input on this too, the shell has some cross bars on it but I don't trust it with super heavy stuff, I bought the shell with a crack that I already have repaired with fiber glass). I'm thinking of making a rack out of thin gauge steel that is supported from the bed similar to how desk to glory's rtt is held up, but I may build something super light off the cross bars that are already there to store light stuff and anything that needs to be thrown up there while we sleep. If the spare needs to go on the roof and I go with the lighter option and don't have enough time/money for the swingout tire carrier, I'll buy some cheap rain gutter mounted cross bars for the cab and throw the small spare tire up there. I really need another set of 63's to bastardize with the current springs to help hold the extra weight better. The extra weight has really affected the handling. It's manageable but with the current shackle angle (which I like for the flex), the only way to help support the weight better is more leaves. Lastly, the shell needs to be sealed to the bed, possibly bolted down, maybe add a fantastic fan, and given a 50 ft paint job using the color I used when I bobbed the bed plus painting both truck and camper shell roofs white to help keep the dogs and us cooler. I already have the paint and hardware for bolting the shell to the bed, but everything else is as funds allow. Handling and comfort are my priority so the the new tires, leaf springs, shell sealing materials, and sleeping pads come first and everything else follows in no particular order. The overall goal is to not have to stay at a hotel during the trips, and just pull over and go to sleep with out really having to move much stuff. As life changes, I may change this back to more of a crawler in the future. We will probably have kids in the future and this thing won't work for kid adventures. But for the foreseeable future, this will be how the dogs, my wife, and I get out and see the world. Here's some pictures of the truck, the old adventure setup, and how it's coming along. Sorry for the sideways pics and run on sentences, any advice on how to fix the pics and on the planned upgrades to the truck would be appreciated. You're just gonna have to deal with the run on sentences, nothing can fix those. Also, if anyone is interest in the details of the initial build I have a thread on pirate. http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/toyota-truck-4runner/1942305-85-longbed-build-el-chuy.html
