Urban Escape Camp Road Tripper

2000 SR5 v6 TRD auto
Mods:
OME 882 front coils
OME top place spacers
OME Nitrocharger shocks all round
OME Dakar leaf springs, OME D6XL AAL
OME shackles
265/75/16 Toyo Open Country MT
Konig Five Star 16x8" -25mm offset
Elite front bumper
Elite rear bumper
PIAA 510 crystal white fog lights
Budbuilt front skid
Budbuilt belly/crossmember skid
BAMF kick out sliders
BAMF diff skid
BAMF BPV bracket
Diff breather extension
ARE CX series shell with win-doors
Hi Lift mounted to bed side
Alpine CDA105 head unit
JL XD200 amp
Polk dB 6501 component speakers
Rockford Fosgate Punch300 amp
2 CDT 8" subs in custom enclosures in rear speaker wall locations
Raammat and Ensolite sound deadnening everywhere except roof. Will get around to this eventually.
Warn M8000 winch
Viking synthetic line and safety thimble
Performance transmission rebuild by Scotts Valley Transmission
Custom Transmission Oil cooler
LED rock/spotting lights.
Shell roof rack coming soon.






Old pics iwht 15" wheels and 33x 10.5, and 32x11.5" MTRs





older pics...









I picked up this '00 Xtracab V6 TRD Auto in August of 2010. I never thought I'd get an automatic but I live in San Francisco on a steep ass hill where parallell parking between fancy expensive cars is a nightmare in a 5spd truck, plus bad Bay Area traffic, and now I'm glad I did. It had kind of high miles (160k or something), clapped out old suspension, teeny little street tires (probably to improve MPG) and a crappy camper shell, but was plenty clean for the use it was going to see-road tripping for camping, snowboarding and surfing and once I prepared it, wheeling and exploring beautiful America . I have always wanted a Tacoma and been interested in 4wheeling but I was too busy with fast sports cars to have a truck in addition until then.

I got it 2 weeks before I was supposed to go to Burning Man and I was bringing two friends, and I knew I would be hauling a LOT of weight for long distances for camping and snowboarding on a pretty regular basis so the old suspension had to go. So first thing I did was put on a set of OME 880s, OME shocks, Dakars, shackles, and 32x11.5 MTR Kevlars. This really transformed the truck into something more capable of hauling a weeks worth of gear and provisions for 3 people through sand, mud, and snow. I knew I was going to haul lots of weight from SF to the hot desert in Nevada and farther north to Tahoe, OR and down to LA, all in a few months so I shelled out big for preventative maintainance. New timing belt, radiator, water pump, gaskets, battery, ignition everything like that just for peace of mind.

I got sick of my shitty FM transmitter for my iPod so I installed an Alpine DCA-105 head unit.

The truck spent some time in the midwest and then by the beach in San Diego and the stock chrome rear bumper was eating itself alive with rust. I found a good deal on a Front Range Offroad plate rear bumper from a member here so I picked that up.

The 32x11.5 MTRs rubbed the frame at full lock and after piling about 25k miles on it in about 18 months I found that I wanted to widen the track for handling, stability with the lift and weight loaded and of course to eliminate the rub so I slapped on Sidertrax 1.25" spacers and bashed on the pinch welds and cut the fender liners. The fender flares had taken a beating and looked haggard so I took them off. I liked the way it looked with them on and the tires stick out a lot more with the spacers and the flares off. Hope CHP doesn't mess with me about it. I got some fiberglass materials to fix them but I'm too busy upgrading more important stuff to mess with that right now.

Then I decided if I'm going to wheel it I want armor and eventually a winch. Coincidentally I found out I could get a Elite front bumper already built right away so I pulled the trigger on that. Also got some PIAA 510 fogs on it for the Bay fog and Tahoe blizzards.

The added weight of the bumper is noticeable and it sags more so I stepped up to OME 882 coils. In the pics above I had just replaced the 880 coils with the 882 coils. I'm sure the 882s wil settle quite a bit like the 880s did. Here is a before and after comparison

Before


After


Got set of BAMF sliders made, he just finished them this week so I'll be installing those as soon as I get a chance. Can't wait! This is the mod I wanted before I started really wheeling it.

Next up is the audio system upgrade. The Alpine HU and loud music is blowing the old stock speakers, I want subs, and the road noise is pretty bad, especially with the MTRs so I'm diving in. I've had all the parts and materials for over a year but didn't have a garage to do this big project in until now. The system will consist of:

Alpine CDA-105 head unit
Polk db6501 6.5" Components
JL Audio XD200/2 75W x 2 amp
2 CDT 8" subs in custom enclusures in the rear speaker locations. I bought these and the RF amp off a member on diymobileaudio for a great deal so we'll see how they work out.
OLD SCHOOL Rockford Fosgate Punch 300amp bridged
Sound deadening the whole interior with RAAMmat and Ensolite.

I'll be starting on the sound deadening today. This is my first audio install ever!

Pics to follow...

 

This is my first ever audio install. Nothing exotic of fancy, just something basic and proven to cut my teeth on. I know this truck is far from the ideal audio platform but it's the better candidate of my two cars (vs Evo race car) and I spend a lof of time in it so it's getting the best shot I can take. I have NO experience in mobile audio so I just want to show my first attempt for your feedback.

System consists of:

LOTS of sound deadening! RAAMmat BXTII and Ensolite peel and stick everywhere possible.
Alpine CDA 105 HU
Polk db6501 comps
JL XD200/2 amp
Old school Rockford Fosgate Punch 300 amp bridged into 2 channels
2 CDT 8" subs in custom enclosures that go into the rear wall speaker location. I bought these and the RF Punch from another member on here.
I have all the wiring and power hardware already too.
I might get a capacitor at some point during the install, I'm not sure yet.
Day 1 - Sound deaden doors
I added foam tape at most mounting points between the wiring clips and door sheet metal to eliminate play and potential vibration. It made them nice and snug and insulated.

 

Added ensolite behind speaker and sealed off the inside door surface with BXTII. In hindsight I would seal off the holes with mesh but I was sick of going to the store over and over so I just used several layers of BXT until it was decently rigid.







You can see how the door hole for the stock plastic speaker mounting plate was as big as the whole mounting plate. I filled in the hole with BXT leaving only enough space for the actual speaker and then mounted the speaker mounting plate on top of it.

 

the supplied speakers rings are pretty crappy and only a few of the holes actually line up in a useful manner. I'm pretty sure I'm going to switch this out for MDF rings really soon. I don't have access to or experience with a router so I'm just going to proceed for now to get the whole system together first. I think I'll learn to use a router to make my first set of sepaker rings after it's all together and working. I also used small scraps of BXT on some of the plastic surfaces.


Here you can see where I added foam tape to insulate the latch rod and covered it in refrigerator water tubing to ensure there are no rattle and squeaks. ANY obvious potential interior rattle/noise sources were eliminated. Was it enough? Probably not...






the speaker didn't quite fit under the door panel so I dremeled some of the fiberboard to make room. I am an idiot because I didn;t pay attention to the door's construction and cut off a little too much and now you can see it from the interior. that's what I get for being a hasty noob at 3am!


I used a total of 84 square feet of RAAmmat on the ONE door! I probably over did it, but the truck has LOUD offroad tires and I have plenty of material so I figure it couldn't hurt. Besides the crappy plastic mounting panel and cutting up the door panel like a fool, did I miss anything? I'm more and more convinced I need to get some MDF rings and I haven't even heard it yet. for the time being I'm going to sandwich Ensolite between the speaker rings and plastic speaker mount and hope it helps. A nagging voice in my head keeps saying the midbass response is going to suck the way it is now...

 

At this point I misplaced my camera with the rest of the pics of the audio install on it. I'll try to find them and post the rest.

 

Got some BAMF sliders welded on. Thanks JLee!

 

Subbed!

 

What kind of front and rear bumpers are those?

 

Cool! Someone gives a shit!

The front is Elite, the rear is Front Range Offroad.

Yesterday I ordered this:
http://store.toddcosuspensions.com/warnm8000.html
but got an email today saying its back ordered til the 9th I wanted to hit up Hollister next weekend and have the winch on by then, so I'm not sure if I will change my order instead?

I havent done much updates because I spent the last few days working on my Evo instead, hard wiring the pump and switching to a upgraded turbo actuator to hole 30 psi on E85 more reliably. That pissed me off so I'm ignoring that project and back to the Taco.

I Herculined the bed and mounted my Hi Lift

 

This morning I ordered a ARE CX series camper shell with every feature I've ever wanted!
-side sliding win-doors aka "sportsman" that tip out/up with pneumatics
-sliding and tip-down front window
-factory installed roof rack rails so I wont have to worry about all the hassle of installing them later
-came with free headliner

It's supposed to arrive THE DAY BEFORE I leave for Burning Man this year. Going to be a close one. Vito at the local ARe dealer said if it doesn't arrive in time he has another shell I can borrow for the week if it comes down to that but I hope it gets here in time!

Still waiting for the winch to arrive...

 

Found out my shell won't arrive til AFTER Burning Man looks like I'm getting an ARE loaner from the dealer. At least that. Winch STILL hasn't arrived.

In the meantime:
Gave the rear end some love...

BAMF diff skid, BPV relocate bracket (yeah I know I need to paint it, I just forgot about it while doing the skid), and Trailgear diff. breather thingy.

Then these showed up...

Viking rigging/rock line and thimble isolator. Kind of wish I got 20' instead of 10'. Oh well. ARB winch line extension strap. I just realized this is rated for 9900lbs. I'm noot sure this is sufficient for what I had in mind, which is that I would need this the most when I'm using a snatch block with a 8000lb winch, which could in theory result in 16000lb pull. I need to look into that. Opinions?

Upon receiving

 

Retuning the ARB extension strap for a 17500lb one. Woo exciting

 

Quality first gen build! + 1 sir. Makes me miss my 99....

 

Thanks homer! There are a few areas that dont quite meet the "quality" standard but she gets nice toys at least. It really needs one of your grills and I was close to getting one from you. I think about it often, just have lots of other higher priorities first.

 

More recovery gear...

 

You going to the burn this year?

Are your BAMF sliders regular? They seem to stick it out a little far...

Sick truck.

 

Yes I am, busy week getting everything ready. They are kick out sliders. Thank you!
I'm off to the ARE dealer to get my loaner shell now...
Haha your signature is funny.

 

Winch finally arrived, but no fairlead?

 

You might need one. One of the dustiest years on record for the playa from the lack of barely any rain. People are getting stuck up to six inches. Might want to invest in a respirator and multiple filters.

I know they're kick-outs, but are the arms from the frame longer than normal? That's what I was asking...
Hope to have my bamf kick out's mid next month.