DeMontbrun's 2006 DC SR5 Tundra Build

[DeMontbrun]

A coworker has an ARB bumper with a brake light and turn signal built in. I got jealous and started looking for a way I could do something similar. I found these Rough Country DRL Flushmounts that had a secondary amber light. They're supposed to be DRLs but I figured they'd work as a turn signal just as well. I just ran the wires up the rear housing and they worked without a problem.

View attachment VID_20190605_192649_2 (1).MP4

 

[DeMontbrun]

Our Zion trip back in April was originally supposed to be a Yosemite trip but there was still too much snow. So instead we went with the much cheaper Zion. The cost difference was the better part of the ARE Overland shell I had been looking at. And a shell is like a mobile hotel so we'd save money in the long run, right? I ordered it and about 6 weeks later it was in. I went for a few of the extras like LEDs in the interior, lift windows on the side, and the roof rack. The color match is absolutely perfect. Or at least it will be once I scratch it up enough to match the rest of the truck.




Since the roof rack was already there, it seemed like a good time to borrow a friend's CVT rooftop tent and Roadshower.

 

[DeMontbrun]

I'm way behind on posting so I'll start with the most recent and back fill as I have time. I ordered a front bumper from Move at the end of November. Things got busy and didn't get to welding until the end of January. We got it all pieced together and took it for a test run in Ocatillo Wells.




Put the D-rings and winch guide on the next weekend. The next step was the tricky part. I really liked the Rough Country pods in the back and having them wired up to the turn signals. I wanted to do the same thing in the front with the fog lights. But when the main light is on, it completely overpowers the turn signal. I needed to find a way to turn off fogs when the turn signal was on, but I also wanted the on to delay so they didn't do an alternating flash. I spent a while casually looking for a solution before I found a relay that would do exactly what I needed. I bought a couple of the Beuler BU509TD relays and started the project.

The first step was wiring the fog light switch to operate independently from the headlights. I wanted to be able to have them on all the time as DRLs but also be able to turn them off if needed. To do this, I dropped the panel under the steering wheel and cut the green wire with the black stripe. I then spliced the switch side wire into the ACC wire for the radio.


I would later find that the problem was that now the fog lights would only come on when the headlights were off. I figured it was an issue with the relay, but it's not super easy to get to. It's a little blue relay located on the backside of the fuse box (at least, it is on a 2006 double cab). If you're trying to find it, find the fuse box, go the back, and then keep going because you're still not far enough behind it. Because of the angle of the box, it's actually pointing 45° up. I pulled that, bent on of the tabs, and wired it up to ground. This step was a pain just because everything is tiny and you can't see what you're doing but it solved the problem.




The final step was wiring up the relays to the light pods. The relays didn't come with a harness (maybe they did but if so it didn't work for my purposes) so I bought a five wire harness from Amazon. Here's the breakdown of what's what:
85 = ground
87a = fog light input (spliced into stock wiring)
86 = turn signal input
30 = fog light output
The light pods themselves only had three wires: fog light in (connects to 30), turn signal in (connected to the same wire as 86), and ground.


With all that wired up, everything works perfectly!
*VIDEO TO COME*

 

[DeMontbrun]

As soon as the larger tires were on the truck rubbing became an obvious issue. I was hitting the plastic fender well, the mud flaps, the pinch joint, and the upper control arm. Basically, unless I was going in a straight line there was some sort of awful noise. The plastic inside the fender was easiest fix and after going to town on them with a pair of scissors that problem was solved. The front mud flaps were unbolted and that one was solved too.

The next priority was the upper control arms. I knew I was going to need spacers, but didn’t have any idea what size. It took some trial and error and I actually ended up going through three different options before finding the right one. First I tried a little 0.25” spacer because I didn’t want to have to bolt the wheel onto a spacer if I didn’t need to. It was no where near enough and didn’t provide any noticeable difference. Next, I went to the other extreme with a 1.25” spacer. This ended up being too much and I was hitting in other places and sometimes even the fender itself. Finally I found the Goldilocks: the 1” spacer. This fixed 90% of my issues with the upper control arm, the only time I would hit is when turning hard and going uphill. Still, significant improvement.


The 1.25" spacer


The smaller 1" spacer

The pinch joint was actually the most concerning because it was scratching the tires. I took an angle grinder to them to cut off the excess metal and then sprayed the exposed metal with automotive primer. I was still hitting at the right (wrong?) angle and speed. So I took the tires back off and hammered the pinch over to buy a little more space. After a little more effort, that was solved too.

While I was doing all this work I decided to repaint the brakes too. The previous owner had painted the front calipers and rear drum the same color blue as the body of the truck it looked ridiculous. I cleaned them up and just went with a metallic silver which was much cleaner. It’s something I didn’t think much of at the time, but every time I’ve seen it since then it’s made me so glad I did it.

 

[DeMontbrun]

At one point I had installed ditch lights, but water ended up getting in the housing and then on Halloween one of them went missing. I decided to take the opportunity to fix some of the wiring and replace the pods with something better.

The lights themselves were mounted on FireStik channel mounts which work pretty well. They’re a lot cheaper than other custom options and do the job just as well. I had to bend them a little bit to get the right clearance from the hood and then used a little spray paint to black out the chrome. Other than that they were ready to go.

For the light pods I decided to go with Auxbeam side shooters. I’m a sucker for details and I love the side lights on these pods. I’m sure the difference in light from these isn’t wildly different, especially given how superfluous these usually are. But I like them anyway. They’ve worked great since I got them and they look perfect too.

 

[DeMontbrun]

The original seats that came in the Tundra were cloth and manual. They had no heaters or any of the other fancy things that came on the Sequoia. And after almost 15 years, they were showing signs of wear. Fortunately, those fancy Sequoia bucket seats are a straight swap for the Tundra seats. I local yard had a Sequoia Limited so I went down and pulled the two front seats. All the wiring is already in the Tundra, all that needed to be done was plug in the harness.



I had already picked up the heat seater buttons a while back just because I wanted to fill the empty slots so that part was already done. Even that was already wired up in the center console, it was just a matter of popping out the blanks and plugging in the switches. No extra fuses or trickery was needed.


Obviously the new, fancy front seats didn’t match the old cloth back bench though. It was finally time for a project I had eyeing since the day I bought the truck. Katzkin. I wanted to do something cool and exciting with the seats but after months of playing with different options and looking at samples, those weren’t coming out the way I wanted. The bright blue exterior made it hard to tie the seats to anything external. There are touches of red outside, but I thought it was going to look like I was driving an American flag if I did anything red inside. In the end I went with a grey that matched the interior paneling with white accent stitching. It’s clean and looks factory. It’s not exciting or eye popping, but I like it.

*PICTURE TO COME*

Also, Katzkin was amazing. They had a truck come out to my office and they did all the work in the parking lot while I was working. There was one panel that he didn’t have enough material, but he got more and came back out. It was a great experience and the price was totally reasonable for the work they did. I would highly recommend them.

 

[DeMontbrun]

I’ve been fighting with my grill since day one. I did a chrome delete early in 2019 and blacked out the chrome on the grill. It looked pretty good but I had something else in mind that I wanted to do.

Honeycomb grill is all the rage and I had seen a video on how to make a Satoshi grill for the Tundra. I figured I could combine these two for a great looking grill. This would require cutting up the existing grill though so I went to a junk yard and pulled another grill. Just a note: the double cab Tundra has a unique grill. It’s slightly different from the single cab, access cab, and even Sequoia.

The first step was to grab the Dremel and trim the center cross piece. Next parts needed to be patched so I taped them up and used Bondo to fill those holes. After copious sanding it was ready to be painted. The last step was to attach the honeycomb grill and the TEQ badge.



*PICTURE TO COME*



When I wen to install the grill I learned something else unique about my truck. In addition to the double cab having a unique grill, the 2005-06 has a different hood latch attachment point than the other years. The grill I had worked on was a 2004. This meant the little latch to release the hood couldn’t attach to the grill so I had to leave it hanging.



I had the grill on for about 6 months…and then I pulled it. I didn’t love the way the black grill looked and then the Bondo started to crack. All that paired with the hood latch and I decided it just wasn’t what I wanted. So instead I took the original grill and put the TEQ badge in the center instead of the OEM Toyota badge. This badge was slightly smaller so I 3D printed a slightly larger backing, but that ended up warping a little so instead I cut out a piece of ABS. For now, this is what I’m sticking with but maybe some day I’ll revisit this project.

*PICTURE TO COME*

 

[DeMontbrun]

This project was pretty easy but has saved be more than once. When I was first looking into trucks/overlanding I came across pictures of under hood lighting which seemed pretty useful. All that's involved is an LED strip along the front of the inside of the hood and a switch or two. First I ran the LED strip (the adhesive failed eventually so I used super glue to reattach it) and then I ran the wiring down along the side of the hood then down to the engine bay with the wiper fluid hose.



I was originally going to do a manual switch but a friend recommended a pressure switch so the light would come on any time the hood was opened. In the end I used a pressure switch but wired up a kill switch next to the air filter so I can turn the lights off if for some reason I want the hood open without the lights.

*PICTURE TO COME*

 

[DeMontbrun]

I didn't love the sound quality of the factory speakers. I've always owned sports cars before (Celica, MR2, Mustang, etc.) and adding subwoofers was always one of the first things I'd do. After 15 years, the original speakers were pretty lackluster so I replaced them all with Pioneers instead. But the bass still wasn't good enough. So I popped up the wider side of the rear 60/40 bench to access the storage cubby underneath. I took out the carpeted cover than seals it and used that to trace an outline on some MDF I had sitting around. I had a couple miss matched 8" subs (one Boss and one D18) that I was originally going to put in a Miata that I dropped in here instead. The amp also came from a car I had sold and was installed under the passenger seat. I had to use the router a couple times to get the subs to sit low enough that they didn't buzz against the bottom of the bunch but eventually I got it all worked out and now the sound quality is much better.

 

[DeMontbrun]

After a taking the truck out a few times the alignment had gotten off so I took it in and they commented on some leaks in the CV boot and bushings on the control arms that looked like they should be addressed. Most of the work didn’t sound like fun except for one piece: upper control arms. The last piece where the bigger tires sometimes hit and this was my chance to fix it. I ordered new CV axles, Moog LCA, and Total Chaos UCA. With the help of a few friends, we beat the whole thing in a night and I was back on the road the next day. And now the rub is gone, the bushings are new, and I have a neat squeak courtesy of the Total Chaos uniballs.

 

[DeMontbrun]

My back end sagged. Sometimes a lot. If I got anywhere near the truck's load capacity it had some serious squat. The picture below was with the back filled with bricks, but even just with camping gear it would drop a lot.


The owner of the company I work for has a small fleet of Land Cruisers. I was talking to his personal mechanic in the office one day when he mentioned that they had switched from air bags to Sumo Springs a few years back. He said they had proven as good, if not better, than air bags since putting them on. I know they do a lot more serious off roading than I do and down in places in Baja where it would be a problem to have things fail. I had been considering air bags, but they sounded like a hassle so I was pretty excited to hear such a glowing review. For a couple hundred dollars, it was worth a try. The installation was super easy: jack up the back end, remove the nuts from the u-bolts that hold bump stops, trade the OEM bumps for the Sumo Springs, and then reverse the process. I was done in under an hour.


The factory bump stop


The replacement Sumo Spring

On road without a load, it feels pretty much the same as the factory bump stops. On road with a load is definitely better and the back bumper isn’t dragging like it used to. There’s still a couple more months before our first big, multi-week trip with them on, but my experience with them so far has been great.

 

[DeMontbrun]

This project was born out of unfortunate necessity. I recently bought a foam cannon to attach to my pressure washer to help with washing the truck (I hate car washes and the damage they do to paint). While spraying down the roof though, I realized the clear coat was starting to burn. Working in east San Diego, the roof gets easily 300+ days of sunshine a year and roof was starting to show it. I decided the best way to keep it from getting any worse was to dip the roof. I figured a non-permanent solution would allow to me to change my mind if I ever wanted to do something different. In the end, I decided I like how it looked so maybe I’ll do something more permanent down the road, but for now this is it.

*PICTURE TO COME*

 

[DeMontbrun]

About a year ago I bought all the parts to add an auxiliary battery and then never got around to doing it. I wanted to put all the aftermarket electrical on a separate system so it wouldn’t kill my starting battery and could even use it to jump myself if I ever needed to. I bought an Optima yellow top battery, an ICT battery bracket, and a Keyline smart battery isolator.



There’s a pretty big space in the engine bay where only the power steering reservoir lives. I made a little bracket to attached the reservoir to the battery mounting bracket. Then I used a Dremel to trim a little plastic off the air filter box and a couple other little things to make a nice pointing point for the battery bracket. I drilled a couple holes and used a couple more existing ones to bolt the battery bracket in to place. The thing I love about the ICT bracket is that it holds the Optima by the bottom of the battery, using the round cells of the battery instead of going over the top.



The Keyline battery isolator charges the auxiliary battery but only once the primary battery is already fully charged. This is definitely critical to make sure your starting battery stays fully charged instead of ending up with two half dead batteries. One end attaches to the primary battery and the other to the auxiliary so I just ran the wire along the firewall and mounted the isolator housing there too. I also used a Sunmorn multiport terminal with a quick release to make it easier to do work on anything on the auxiliary system.

 

[DeMontbrun]

Backup camera