bryce0lynch
Member
I backpacked through Asia & Africa when I was younger, then settled down for 30 years for wives, kids, mortgages, etc. Time to get back at it! My first retirement date at the university is 3/21/2025. The new girlfriend likes to camp, so I've pushed up my "build & build" timeline by 2.5 years. Retire, tool around the US & Canada for a bit, then hit Central and South America, then ship to Africa and drive around there and Asia. Also, try to visit every place in my Strange Storied & Amazing Facts book, from 1975, most of which are now proven hoaxes and/or now have scientific explanations.
I wanted to base my build around an ARE MX topper with the walk-in door, and do it in a mid-size truck for more maneuverability, with 4x4 for getting in to more places/away from the crowds. That means Tacoma or Frontier. The Tacomas in Indianapolis were rusted out AND expensive, but I found an Indiana Frontier, a 13 4x4 SV with 79,000 on the odometer. Mechanic says its one of the best used trucks he's seen, no rust at all under the body, except a little surface stuff on the driveshaft and muffler. I call the cap place. Yes, the cap is available. The truck salesman calls the cap place. Yes the cap is available with the door. I buy it and drive to the cap place. Their system kicks out the order. The Frontier ARE MX cap no longer has the walk in door available, in spite of the ARE computer system and web site saying it is so. Home & Dreams crushed. I panic make a decision and buy a DCU aluminum/workman cap on the spot ... without doing my research.
I end up with one 29" high, for the extra headroom, and windoors on either side. I wanted sliding windows, but they said it was unavailable. It turns out they WERE available, but I only found that out later. The windoors should provide excellent ventilation though ... and I hope keep the rain out also. I got barn doors on the back, which, along with the extra headroom, was my primary buying concern: no more crawling over tailgates. It takes two months to come in. When it does, it doesn't fit. It's too short. ARE doesn't make many caps for the Frontier, it seems. They put on a longer flange and say it will be as weather-tight as all other caps. Oh well. Bonus points, it fits in the garage under my apartment building!
I put in polyiso R6 on the ARE cap, proper, and then covered it with chenille as a headliner for aesthetics and condensation purposes. Then I covered the truck bed with $.50 sqft indoor/outdoor carpet from Lowes, just to get the bare metal covered.
It's a very basic truck. So far I've:
*) Put on a hitch and done the wiring for it.
*) Put in a cheapo Pioneer headunit with bluetooth support
*) Put in a backup camera.
*) Better grounding from the truck bed to the frame.
*) Put the cap on
*) Insulated the cap
*) KO2's
*) Put a headliner in the cap and carpeted the truck bed proper.
Next steps:
*) Build a U shaped sleeper box, with a table that slides down to turn the whole thing in to a bed. This will be roughly prototyped, first, with 1x1 wood and then done in aluminum.
*) Roof rack from a Suburban at pick-a-part
*) DC-DC charger and 100-200amp Lithium battery. (My night heat will be a 12v heated mattress pad; I might be able to get away with only 100amps, we'll see.)
*) Lights/outlets, etc. All 12v
*) Magnetic screens for the windoors and rear doors.
*) Maybe a powered roof vent.
*) Maybe sliders
*) A winch
*) Some kind of under-hood/under-bed on-board air/compressor.
*) Better shocks. I have a history of blowing out shocks on washboard. So, something HD but still with ready availability
*) Fluid film it
*) Try and locate some kind of wind deflector to help with the problem of the cap stick up about 6" over the cab. Aesthetics AND MPG issues, I think? I don't know what I'm going to do here. I've not seen anything like this, except on semi's.
*) A billion other things to get back the "modern car" functionality, like auto-headlights, sonar parking sounds, time till empty, etc.
Upsides to the Frontier as a platform:
*) Reliability. It's an old design and very solid old school truck. That is, after all, perhaps the primary point, isn't it?
Downsides to the Frontier as a platform:
*) Old design means "typical old truck gas mileage." 13 or so, in the city. With a not-huge tank. I anticipate some range anxiety. I'm loathe to carry things on the outside of the truck, I'd prefer to keep it looking like a truck and not an overlander. I don't know yet what I'm going to do to mitigate my range anxiety.
*) Aftermarket stinks. As witnessed by the MX cap debacle. You don't get much selection, if you get any at all. This is MOSTLY ok for me, since I'm going pretty close to stock.
Truck came in two months ago. Cap came in last week, so a lot of progress in the last week on the cap. Going to my first "Overlander" meetup this weekend ... with mask on and 6' apart.
I wanted to base my build around an ARE MX topper with the walk-in door, and do it in a mid-size truck for more maneuverability, with 4x4 for getting in to more places/away from the crowds. That means Tacoma or Frontier. The Tacomas in Indianapolis were rusted out AND expensive, but I found an Indiana Frontier, a 13 4x4 SV with 79,000 on the odometer. Mechanic says its one of the best used trucks he's seen, no rust at all under the body, except a little surface stuff on the driveshaft and muffler. I call the cap place. Yes, the cap is available. The truck salesman calls the cap place. Yes the cap is available with the door. I buy it and drive to the cap place. Their system kicks out the order. The Frontier ARE MX cap no longer has the walk in door available, in spite of the ARE computer system and web site saying it is so. Home & Dreams crushed. I panic make a decision and buy a DCU aluminum/workman cap on the spot ... without doing my research.
I end up with one 29" high, for the extra headroom, and windoors on either side. I wanted sliding windows, but they said it was unavailable. It turns out they WERE available, but I only found that out later. The windoors should provide excellent ventilation though ... and I hope keep the rain out also. I got barn doors on the back, which, along with the extra headroom, was my primary buying concern: no more crawling over tailgates. It takes two months to come in. When it does, it doesn't fit. It's too short. ARE doesn't make many caps for the Frontier, it seems. They put on a longer flange and say it will be as weather-tight as all other caps. Oh well. Bonus points, it fits in the garage under my apartment building!
I put in polyiso R6 on the ARE cap, proper, and then covered it with chenille as a headliner for aesthetics and condensation purposes. Then I covered the truck bed with $.50 sqft indoor/outdoor carpet from Lowes, just to get the bare metal covered.
It's a very basic truck. So far I've:
*) Put on a hitch and done the wiring for it.
*) Put in a cheapo Pioneer headunit with bluetooth support
*) Put in a backup camera.
*) Better grounding from the truck bed to the frame.
*) Put the cap on
*) Insulated the cap
*) KO2's
*) Put a headliner in the cap and carpeted the truck bed proper.
Next steps:
*) Build a U shaped sleeper box, with a table that slides down to turn the whole thing in to a bed. This will be roughly prototyped, first, with 1x1 wood and then done in aluminum.
*) Roof rack from a Suburban at pick-a-part
*) DC-DC charger and 100-200amp Lithium battery. (My night heat will be a 12v heated mattress pad; I might be able to get away with only 100amps, we'll see.)
*) Lights/outlets, etc. All 12v
*) Magnetic screens for the windoors and rear doors.
*) Maybe a powered roof vent.
*) Maybe sliders
*) A winch
*) Some kind of under-hood/under-bed on-board air/compressor.
*) Better shocks. I have a history of blowing out shocks on washboard. So, something HD but still with ready availability
*) Fluid film it
*) Try and locate some kind of wind deflector to help with the problem of the cap stick up about 6" over the cab. Aesthetics AND MPG issues, I think? I don't know what I'm going to do here. I've not seen anything like this, except on semi's.
*) A billion other things to get back the "modern car" functionality, like auto-headlights, sonar parking sounds, time till empty, etc.
Upsides to the Frontier as a platform:
*) Reliability. It's an old design and very solid old school truck. That is, after all, perhaps the primary point, isn't it?
Downsides to the Frontier as a platform:
*) Old design means "typical old truck gas mileage." 13 or so, in the city. With a not-huge tank. I anticipate some range anxiety. I'm loathe to carry things on the outside of the truck, I'd prefer to keep it looking like a truck and not an overlander. I don't know yet what I'm going to do to mitigate my range anxiety.
*) Aftermarket stinks. As witnessed by the MX cap debacle. You don't get much selection, if you get any at all. This is MOSTLY ok for me, since I'm going pretty close to stock.
Truck came in two months ago. Cap came in last week, so a lot of progress in the last week on the cap. Going to my first "Overlander" meetup this weekend ... with mask on and 6' apart.
