Driving a Tacoma around the world

It’s been 30-40 below with windchill and 40-50 mph winds the last few days. Real fun haha.


We travel out of the 99 4Runner and obviously the back seats stay down because that’s our bed/house/kitchen/everything back there so we can’t offer rides either! If we did their sweaty crack would be sitting right on our pillows so no go.

In all seriousness, super stoked for y’all! We’ve been all over but never for more than a month or a few at a time as a couple. Longest I’ve done on a trip was about a 11 months. I’ve always wanted to take a bike or truck RTW but shorter trips just work better for us!

Will be following for updates!

 

Brr. Not into windy cold. I’ve been slacking on posting updates to the truck.

 

Here’s one addition I’ve added: An ARB snorkel from Wheelers Off-road in Grants Pass, OR for $500. The install took about 5 hours over a couple of days. The hardest part was the removal of the plastic part that covers the inner wheel well. Cutting the fender on basically brand new truck was quite committing.



I coated the edge of the big hole with painters tape to protect the finish even though it gets covered by the snorkel body.



As you can see I used a simple saber/scroll saw. I did hold it a 1/2” off of the body in order to not scratch the paint, it was the easiest step



Now ready for the fun part; installing the body.



The finished product. I did elect to install the snorkel on the A pillar using VHB tape instead of drilling holes into the cab. We’ll see how long this holds

if anyone is thinking of this mod, @Hodakaguy did a great job showing this. BTW, I found that I did not have to remove the mass air sensor from the air cleaner. Here’s a reference https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-safari-snorkel-install-how-to-article.543067/

 

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us! I just read through the entire thread and am excited for you! We just purchased an access cab sport ourselves an I am curious to see how she holds up on your trip. QUITE the transformation!

We live outside Merlin and have some great logging roads up behind the house with a great view of Grants Pass, Merlin and Hugo and roads from mild to wild. If you want to test out your new rig I would be glad to give you a guided tour. You could do the whole system in a day and there are plenty of spots to camp out up there.

Happy Trails!

: )B

 

I have my pillar mount attached with VHB also. About every 10-12 months I have to unbolt it and replace the tape. Other than that it does fine.

 

glad to see it works. We’ll be carrying VHB tape in repair kit. Do you find that the air filter stays cleaner longer?

 

Id love to do a test, especially with someone who can recover me. Thanks it’s a bit snowy these days in our local hills. BTW I’m in Ashland only 40 miles or so away.

My wife and I love the the Rogue country. In fact we’re just this weekend we began setting up our website and decided that our name will be Rogue Wanderers.com. This is where we’ll be blogging our trip, but right now it’s a very much work in progress. For the rest of you who aren’t familiar with southern OR, we have a great river with a bit of history to it called the Rogue River. It’s famous for a gold rush, the home of western author Louis l’Amour, and today has a great fishing, a 4 day wilderness class IV rafting adventure as well as great jet boat rides.

 

It is pretty snowy around here as well right now, still have a couple inches in the yard. Got about 6 inches in this last storm. Power just was restored today, went out about 3am last Thursday. Thank goodness for Mother in law living in Grants Pass!

RogueWanderers.com is a GREAT choice for your blog! Will be watching and enjoying your adventure from afar. Let me know if you ever need a second rig for backup to do trail testing. I'm off Friday through Sunday.

Your rig is looking great! Do you have a name for it yet?

 

Oooo rig name should be The Wanderer from the song by Dion

 

Thanks! still waiting for a few things like our new seats, a water purification system, and installing anti sway bars. No name yet. I got blasted by the family for saying our website name. They said it will be a turnoff because it’s nowhere near set up yet and looks bad, oops. So bare with us for a bit. Needs to be ready by Feb 4th cause that’s when I’m announcing publicly that I’m retiring. I guessing sometime this spring we’ll be on the local NBC TV station cause my wife knows the owner and we need to be ready

 

I do a lot of traveling on limestone gravel roads. Without the snorkel I was putting a filter a month in the truck with it I am good for at least 4-5 months on a filter.

 

Not reading 600+ posts to see if anyone asked where you intend to mount the 50 cal??

G.

 

It looks like you have the new rear springs on? Looks WAY better!

 

Nope, no one yet but we are planning on mounting the M240 on the Yakima roof rack!

 

Yes you’re very observant. The custom Deavers are much better. They lifted the truck about 2” and give it a more stiff ride, which I like. Wouldn’t want to park it in a low clearance city hotel garage though. Getting ready to install front and rear Hellwig anti-sway bars. Hoping it will make it corner like a 911!

need to upload a new photo showing the increase in clearance

 

Which Deavers did you go with? Completely custom, or one of the U402 packs?

 

they were completely custom. They ended up only being $200 more than the heavy duty Dobinsons that was the first attempt. All they needed was the weight of each axle.

 

Nice. Our Deaver U402 Stage 3 are great, been running them for about a year and a half and other than a little settling when new, they haven't sagged at all. Seem to support the weight extremely well. It takes my loaded car trailer to get me back down to about stock ride height

Gave my boss a ride home the other night and he actually called out how well my truck handled the speed bumps in his neighborhood (he drives a nice newer Silverado).

 

Do you have any contingency plans in case the CORONA virus puts stumbling blocks in your path? Not looking to put a damper on your travels, but a dose of reality is warranted as this thing is getting more serious at times goes on.

 

I thin the best thing we can do is to be aware of the risks and assess that as we go. Supposedly the corona virus hits people with weakened immune systems and older people and has a pretty low fatality rate. Both my wife and are really healthy and in shape so I think we’re okay for now. I’m also watching for any outbreaks in West Africa of ebola or Marionburg, both of which are extremely contagious and quite fatal