The "Pandacorn" DCSB build and travel thread

Figured I'd make an attempt at a build thread. It will take a little while to get caught up to the current state. As for the name "Pandacorn" you will have to ask my wife about that one because I have no idea ha!

2002 TRD double cab, bone stock w/canopy and nerf bars, purchased in 2012 with 169k miles from my cousin who was the original owner.

 

Sold the canopy and nerf bars, painted the wheels and tint matched the front windows to the rears.

 

Installed:
-Bilstien 5100's F+R
-15x8 black rock crawler steel wheels
-33x12.50 BFG A/T's (trimmed bumper and smashed pinch weld to fit)
-Flowmaster muffler
-Deckplate mod w/K&N filter

Before/After and it stayed like this for quite a while.

 

Tire and wheel set up are gorgeous

 

This had been my dream pickup since they first came out. The only disappointment I had was that Toyota didn't offer a 5spd option. When the auto tranny started slipping on me I started crunching numbers on a 5spd swap. It was slightly beyond my skill level with all the wiring that would need changed. I made a call to Toyonlyswaps and arranged for them to do it for me. After a few days in the shop I was driving home with a dream come true.

Their work was top notch. You would be hard pressed to tell that its not factory. There was a notable power increase according to the butt dyno and the mpg's also saw a slight increase. Overall extremely pleased with the change.

 

Damn... I want a 5 speed in mine. I've been hoping for my auto to shit the bed so I could justify doing the swap haha! Are you willing to tell us how much the swap ran you?

 

It was right at 3k out the door for the swap with parts (including new oem clutch) and labor. Hurt initially but haven't regretted the decision.

 

Next I had my buddy bend me up some sliders. In my experience sliders protect the truck just as much at the mall (people swinging open their doors) as they do on the trail. I didn't want to drill a bunch of holes and swiss cheese the frame so instead I plated the frame and welded the sliders with / angle gussets to the frame plates.

Fitting 33's meant I had to previously remove the front factory mud flaps. Even with the fender flares the tires sprayed crap all over the side of the truck. With the sliders on I was able to fab up a simple mount for some rally style mud flaps that sat a little further back from the tires. I trimmed the factory flaps to fit the contour of the fender flares.

Personally I'm loving the rally/minimalist look they give along with the extra protection from gravel sand blasting my lower panels.

 

Since owning the taco I had been fighting 4wd issues. The front ADD actuator was giving me nothing but trouble. I tore it apart and cleaned/ checked the connections and it still had issues. Broke down and bought a new OEM one and the problem persisted. Figured it might be in the wiring somewhere but I was done screwing with it. In the theme of keeping things simple I opted to scrap all the auto hub garbage. I like things simple and to work when they are supposed to. I was able to source everything I needed from a 97 Tacoma with factory manual hubs (hubs, spindles, axles, non add diff tube). I know the cv's are weaker on manual hubs but I have no plans for a front locker or tires bigger than 33" so it shouldn't be much of a problem.

Spent some time cleaning up the hubs

Tearing it all apart

Garbage

All buttoned back up.

 

Next on the list was bumpers. My buddy has a tube bender so I headed over to his shop to see what we could come up with.

 

And the rear

 

Paint!

Did the grill at the same time

 

Worked out a sweet deal for some kings! And added dakars to the rear.
Before:

After:

Dirty kings..

Then went out exploring that weekend to break everything in

 

Chaos fab UCA's, new lower ball joints and spindle gussets installed

 

Pic of the canopy added

More snow and added red ebay lights....

Light switch location

 

April of this year I got married. We spent two weeks covering 7 states (OR-CA-NV-AZ-UT-ID-WY) and 3,000 miles driving around the west. Random pics from the trip:

 

We quickly decided on the honeymoon that the canopy wasn't working for us and we needed to change out our setup. It seemed like everything I needed kept being buried at the front and I would have to crawl in or unload half the truck to get what I needed. I found an All Pro bed rack on Craigslist when we returned and quickly snatched it up and sold the canopy. It was the exact height I was wanting. The bro looking spider web gussets have since grown on me. I really wanted to chop them off when I got it

 

Beautiful truck
Congrats on wedding


I am confused by one thing

Truck came with canopy color matched. You sold it and got a black one ? You didn't like it and sold that again ?

 

Hahaha yes that is correct... I thought canopies were for old man pickups when I got it, so I sold it. Later I realized how useful they are. My buddy was selling his black one and so I picked it up on the cheap (this was about 4 years later). Following the honeymoon we decided on a RTT setup and didn't want it up over the canopy and also wanted easy bed access back. A little confusing because a 6 year span is smashed together in a couple posts to try and get caught up with the current status of the truck

 

Got it

My only beef with my 4 door gen 1 is the lack of manual tranny

I actually have talked to Cliff at length at ToyONLY for the swap

Nice to see someone who did the same swap and used their shop

Gives me confidence