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

[mbrewer]

Welp... the ABS repair didn't work.
So, not wanting to buy a new ABS ECU, I gave up and I pulled the ABS fuse. She drives great now. My last Taco was a 2002 and I drove it through montana on glare ice in the middle of winter, and it did fine. I just have to teach my girlfriend how to drive without ABS on ice. My fuse box was also all screwed up, one mount was cracked off, and another halfway there, leaving only one solid mount. I glued it all back together with JB weld. It comes apart a little differently than before, but it's stabalized and should hold up now.

We're on the road again, currently in Pennsylvania. Once again the lift and bigger tires payed for itself as I veered off the road and didn't notice a ditch... The tires do rub sometimes though, so I think I still need to work on the plastic a bit. We had some smoke coming off the front while going down a long hill. I though it was the clutch (from backing up at one point) and was pretty worried, until I realized it was just the new brake pads burning in.

Alls well, heading west!

 

[mbrewer]

We hung out in the Ozarks for a while with a friend and hung out on his land for a little while.
IMG_20161030_084803 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

While in Missouri we helped my friend gather Prairie Seeds and learned a bunch more plants and about how to manage prairie's. Gathered acorns. Floated down the current river. Camped out and went backpacking. Lots of amazing times.
IMG_20161030_084846 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr
IMG_20161004_193259 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

 

[mbrewer]

Next off to Michigan, we've been here about a week.
IMG_20161105_140535 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

The sand dunes are really neat.
PANO_20161108_112623 by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

We also drove down some surprisingly rough dirt roads here... Just rough enough to be fun but with no rocks very safe. We've just been hanging out enjoying the leaves and doing a lot of hiking. It's hunting season, so we've had our orange on, but just archery for now, I think we'll be off to Wisconsin before opening weekend of gun season.

Truck's rollin' along well. The setup is still working very well for us. Our biggest annoyance is that it's a little hard to dig out the guitars from the bag. We've upgraded to inflatable sleepingpads from thermarest for the back (the new thick type) saving our shoulders and helping a bit with warmth. The temperatures have dipped just below freezing once or twice, so we've actually been using our down sleepingbags, but mostly just as additional quilts for now.

 

[mbrewer]

Oh, if you didn't check the dates yourselves we're coming up on 7 months on the road now (a little cheating though since we kept stopping by my parent's place). WOOOT!

 

[jlparker77]

Just found your thread, so I like what you've got going on. I have a question about your shell, it's the leer 122, and you said it came with the rack already. I have the same shell, only on a gmc 1500. My question is, are you able to tell me how the rack is mounted? i want to put one on top of mine and would like a starting point for how and where to be structurally sound. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Happy trails!

Jade

 

[mbrewer]

Roof racks?

Jade:
There are several solutions, but I actually kind of wish I *hadn't* gotten the rack installed. Instead I would prefer to get a basket designed to fit directly in to a pair of tracks with no intermediate tower (think outside thule yakama here... I'm having trouble finding a link right now though). These need to be installed aftermarket because the tracks need to be spaced properly. There are some nice aftermarket ones designed for mounting on a cap that are low profile baskets, keeping your profile 3" or more lower than my setup. With this

If you want the equivelent of a factory installed one they are "rails". Like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Thule-Track-...id=1479781761&sr=8-2&keywords=thule+rack+caps
This is bolted through the roof in maybe 6 spots along the length of the rack, and sealed with RTV... that would give you exactly what I have.

A cheaper solution that's almost as strong is to get a gutter mount rack, and the install a "fake gutter" to your cap: https://www.amazon.com/Thule-542-Ar...8&qid=1479781862&sr=8-3&keywords=thule+gutter

I highly suggest doing some searches for this... it's been covered on more than one thread on this forum, the 122 has a shorter length of roof, but otherwise should be pretty much the same as any other fiberglass shell as far as structural soundness and mountings go.

hope that helps!

 

[mbrewer]

We're in Wisconsin visiting a friend right now, and I've been winterizing the truck a bit.

While in Michigan our battery voltage started dropping too low for our inverter (just used to run laptops) after 2 days not driving. The Walmart battery was shot when we bought the truck, just from sitting on the lot, and it had to be charged for us to drive away. It seemed to be going okay so we eaked a year out of the old one. So... time for a new one. So, I started researching. I wanted something that'll start as reliably as possible in -30F, and something that would handle a small draw (laptop) for a few hours a day for maybe a week between driving.

The one we had was group 35 with 640 CCA. Group 24F fits though, and some report fitting 27F with minor mods. For this use ideal would be an AGM dual-use battery like the optima yellowtop (though apparently their quality has tanked recently). So, I picked out some name brands to go searching for.

I quickly found them online, but after more research it seems battery warranties are fulfilled only through the company you buy them from, so online is not ideal. This means I needed a bit chain. I then went to every major parts chain, batteries plus, walmart, and called home-depot... and couldn't find a single name-brand battery that fit my truck in stock.

I didn't want to wait to order one *through* one of those stores... so I finally gave up and bought the best group 24F non-AGM Walmart battery (a top rated battery by consumer reports at least). It's 760 CCA, which is still a huge improvement, and mostly it's not old and shot. I'm aware reserve power is also relevent, that's one of 3 reasons I wanted AGM (supposedly they also handle vibration and cold better), but I forget the numbers off the top of my head.

We shall see.

 

[jlparker77]

That does help, a lot. The main reason for the rack would be a basket on top. I saw a shell that had the "fake gutter" mounts yesterday, and thought it looked horrible. although effective. Do you know if the 122 has the honeycomb type roof center section? if so i'd have to either go far enough to the outside to stay away from it, or reinforce each hole so it doesn't crush it. but the basket mounted substantially lower/closer to shell would be best, as long as it is still relatively simple to remove still. I've not found the basket that sits directly on the tracks like you mention. if you see it, please post it so i can check it out. Thank you.

 

[mbrewer]

June

Something like this - https://www.frontrunneroutfitters.com/en/us/roof-racks/canopy-cap-trailer-racks.html. I have no idea about the honeycomb thing.

 

[jlparker77]

Those are way cool. But a bit spendy. I went to a pick n pull and got a track set up with cross bars that is pretty low profile. I'll figure out if I can drill through the roof and stick it down. I appreciate your info.

 

[mbrewer]

oops

15391066_10105960935569812_3484564773120834258_n by smalladventures photos, on Flickr

Driving through a blizzard, glare ice in North Dakota.
We're in a hotel while we wait for the insurance appraiser to take a look - probably going to fix it regardless.

 

[tyv12]

Dang...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[yurtdweller]

Holy crap! Are you okay?? Was anyone hurt???


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[mbrewer]

Everyone fine, truck totaled, bought it back and fixing it again

My girlfriend joked that she got hurt... she broke a nail, seriously, that was the worst injury.

It was an incredibly slow rollover, neither one of us even really got our adrenaline up. The deep snow cushioned the whole thing, so it was nice a and soft.
The engine was heavy enough and given how the roof was loaded none of our stuff was damaged up top. In the back the 2x4's that support the platform held everything pretty close to in place (that had been part of the idea of the design, it was cool to know it works). We had a box with food, some backpacks, etc. that fell from floor to ceiling (and then back again when we rolled it back)... but amazingly it's all fine.

We spun on the ice. I wasn't even going fast, maybe 35? There was someone in front of me... long following distance, but they hit their brakes a little. I *tapped* mine... barely... but that was enough to start me fishtailing, third swing I lost it and we started spinning. Engine died since I didn't push in the truck and at some point we were going backwards. I had to figure that one out afterwards - but end result is the engine was off before the truck was upside down, which is great.

Super nice sheriff stopped just after we'd crawled out and picked us up, which is good because it was hovering around 0F or so, and that's before windchill. He gave us a ride to a local bar. There were so many accidents a towtruck didn't make it out to us until late that evening (by the time we knew one was on the way the bar keep had called the sheriff's department to take us up to the city - so she'd be able to closer her bar eventually). The tow-truck picked us up. Weather was so bad it probably took us probably half an hour to go the ~3 miles back to the truck... had to drive extra slow 'cause it was hard to spot through the blizzard conditions. The tow-truck rolled the truck over. We disassembled the roof-rack and shoved that in the back, and we were off.

Spent the few days bouncing around Bismarck North Dakota. Hotels were all overbooked due to the Blizzard. They closed all the major highways. We managed to land one across town though, 3 mile walk. Luckily we had gear for it so walked across town bundled to the hilt. Gore-tex overmitts, with puffy lined mittens, and liner gloves... that sort of gear. We were stalling waiting for the insurance company to decide if it was totalled, but eventually it was time to head out to see family for christmas. We had Amtrak tickets out of Minot. We found a bus line that ran to Fargo, then called Amtrak and moved the train tickets to Fargo. Spent an evening bouncing around coffee-shops, walked to the bus-station for a 3am bus - it was 2 hours late. Got to fargo ~8am. Spent a day bouncing around coffee shops and bars. Power went out around 10 or so that night, and we had to move to a bar that still had power. Went to the train station for a 2am train, it was 3 hours late, left at 5AM, transfer in Chicago the next day at 9pm with 6 hour layover, this train was 3 hours late... and now I'm back in Massachusetts.

I just got a call from the insurance folks - car is totalled as expected. But, they think it's scrap value is in the HUNDREDS of dollars. Seriously... And they are paying out ~10k. So, I'm buying it back. The pillars are solid, so the shop it's at is going to bang the roof out and install a new windshield, replace the mirror, and do a once-over on the engine pulling the oil out and such. It'd be ~20k to make it look pretty, but to just do the practical stuff is only ~2k. So, we should have a very dented up but otherwise functional and safe truck back in not too long.

In the meantime I'm hanging out at my parent's place, and my girlfriend is at her parent's place. I will definitely drive even slower on ice in the future, and maybe run a touch lower tire pressure. Keep that center of mass low.

 

[mbrewer]

Oh... roof rack is a little bent, towers are smashed... and the cap is cracked. I think we can repair the fiberglass cap, no problem there. The towers have to be replaced, might be able to reuse the bars and basket, I'm not sure yet. Once we get the truck back and drivable we'll have to find a place out near North Dakota to whole up and do some minor repairs. The passenger door window doesn't work due to a giant dent in it, so I'll probably go looking for a junkyard door to replace it.

I ditched the table on the side of the road, along with the sticks we used for pitching our tarp. It just wasn't worth trying to load the cheapo table in anywhere in below zero temps on the side of the road in a blizzard. I feel bad for littering .