Hodakaguy's Overland Tacoma Builds - on to new adventures.

With our Unimog sold we set our sights on new adventures.

After two big projects I'm ready to do less building and more using. My mind set is changing for now, I want to do as much camping and traveling as possible while my son is at the right age. This build will be more bolting stuff on than fabricating.

Selecting a Vehicle: We wanted a newer reliable vehicle that will haul the whole family and be capable off road at the same time. We also want another Four Wheel Camper to carry on the back for family trips as we really liked our past FWC.

We've always been a big fan of the Toyota Tacoma so my father and I set out to look at Tacoma's. We both liked the TRD Off Road quad cab model in the Quicksand color so now we own matching rigs

Not as cool as the Unimog but these will be practical for our intended use.


Planned upgrades:

OME BP-51 bypass shocks - Good suspension makes a HUGE difference.
Dakar rear spring packs
Firestone air bags with Daystar Cradles
Onboard air
Dual Battery Setup
Snorkel
Canopy with roof rack
ARB Fridge
SSO Hybrid bumper with 30" LED
Winch
wheels/tires
Misc


The Trucks





Instagram at: Hodakaguy_Tom

Hodakaguy

Who's got the black grille? Like that one better.

Ready for the next installment of shop & welding green fits of jealousy.

edit: Ha, that sounded a little more grinchy than I meant. Really looking forward to this, I'm thinking of doing some similar mods to my truck, hope to pick up some good ideas.

Thanks for taking the time to post this!

And another adventure begins......

That's my fathers truck, we installed the "pro" grill in his first. He picked up his truck a few weeks ahead of me. I'll be posting pics of the mods as I go.

Hodakaguy

Yep lol

Hodakaguy

I loved the Mog build, even though this is a bolt on build right now, I suspect you will not be able to stay away from the welder.

On the test drive with my truck there was a noticeable vibration that felt like a tire out of balance, the roads around the dealer were in pretty poor cond and I eventually chocked it up to the road. Once on the highway heading home it became apparent that there is a tire balance issue at 54-60mph then again around 70. We were in a hurry to get on the road for home so we wouldn't be getting back super late so I figured I would deal with it at my local dealer once home.

Once we arrived home I scheduled an appointment for a tire balance at my local dealer. The service manager took a ride with me and said he had a hard time feeling the vibration, I let him drive next and he then said he could feel it. They re-balanced the tires and said the problem was gone....Nope. On the drive home it still had the vibration issue just slightly better.

The next morning my father came over so I swapped wheels and tires from his truck to mine.




My fathers canopy had came in so we took a test drive over to get the canopy installed on his truck. Once on the road the vibration was completely gone on my truck and my father said his truck now had the vibration. We will stop at the dealer again after the canopy install.

Leer canopy installed on my fathers truck. When doing off road trips we will use the canopy's to carry gear and support a roof top tent.




We stopped at the local Toyota dealer again on the way home and told them about swapping wheels/tires and the problem going with it. They said they just put a lift kit on a brand new 18 TRD OR and they would just take my 4 wheels and tires and swap me out with a complete new set. After an hr or so I had a fresh set of wheels/tires and they were driving nice and smooth. Great customer service this time around!

Hodakaguy

...and I am in. Sure hoping you find something for your father to weld! At night I lie awake with visions of the welds on that bumper guard for the Unimog...

I'm sure we will be fabricating something

Hodakaguy

First mod is to get rid of the ugly looking chrome grill. We changed my father's grill out when he first got his truck and I ordered my grill shortly after. The Toyota Pro grill is $400 which is way steep for a piece of plastic, luckily there are exact knock offs from China on Ebay for $140. I was leery of ordering one at first but after reading a lot of reviews we took the chance. Our grills both came packaged extremely well and the units were in excellent cond, I've held the OEM pro grill and can't tell any difference between the two.

The ugly looking chrome cheese grater grill




The Pro Grill came packed very well






Side by side






And installed. Simple mod but it really changes the overall look of the truck






Hodakaguy

Unreal that the dealer swapped for you, awesome.

Any problems with TPMS talking/reprogramming?


We stopped at the local Toyota dealer again on the way home and told them about swapping wheels/tires and the problem going with it. They said they just put a lift kit on a brand new 18 TRD OR and they would just take my 4 wheels and tires and swap me out with a complete new set. After an hr or so I had a fresh set of wheels/tires and they were driving nice and smooth. Great customer service this time around!

Hodakaguy[/QUOTE]

One of the first camping/overland components showed up.....ARB fridges. REI was having a close out sale on some ARB refrigerators and allowed the use of a 25% off coupon coupled with the sale. ARB also had a rebate going on where you could get a limited edition map print cover for the units free if you purchased the units in December. We ended up each snagging a unit. The ARB fridge is a true compressor refrigerator/freezer. They will keep stuff frozen on 90 plus degree days and take very little power to run. We will use them in the back of the trucks on desert trips and I will fab a mount to utilize one of the units in the Four Wheel Camper as well.

Fridges waiting to keep something cold.



Hodakaguy

In

[/QUOTE]

Yeah that was awesome customer service on their behalf, even though I didn't purchase the truck from that dealer. We did purchase my fathers from there and I did make a point to tell them I would have got mine there as well but they couldn't locate me the options/color package I wanted.

Since My wheels were on my father's truck I had them install the new ones on his truck as well. They swapped my sensors into the new wheels but that still left my fathers and I's tires on the wrong trucks and the TPMS not talking, all 8 tires would have to be re-programmed to the trucks or we could just swap them back. The next morning I swapped tires back so they were on the original trucks and did a refresh on the TPMS via the learn button under the dash. Both sets started talking again and everything was finished at that point.

Hodakaguy

What were they thinking with that grill?
Looking forwards to the truck's progress and development and your fun doing it.

Carry On.

This should be good!

I suspect that there'll be some mission creep tho.

M

All auto makers still have this obsession with "chrome" like it's still 1955. I know some may like it, but I hate it.

I don't know what would ever make you say that.

Yeah the slide outs are pretty pricey. There are others that are a lot nicer than that one. Not sure what I'll do for slider yet.

Sub'd! Umm, watching?!

This model is the 37 Qt, they make larger versions as well but our camper is small and this is about as big as I want to go. The 37Qt also fits in a Vanagon really well behind the passenger seat. I've never personally ran either unit but know people with the ARB's and they have nothing but good to day about them, I've read that the ARB is a little better than the Dometic but again have no personal experience with that. These came out to be $445 with cover each so they were to good of a deal to pass up.

These blow away the Truck Fridge that I was using in my Vanagon, they get cold quick and stay cold even in the heat! My Truck Fridge would struggle to maintain temp in the heat. I plugged these units in when I got home and they went down to Zero Deg really quick!

Hodakaguy