A Pack Mule with a Transfer Case...the Grey Mouser.

Herein lays the tale of a humble, little truck. A truck that has been tweaked and fiddled and fitted to support the adventurous activities and backwoods wanderings of its wanderlust inflicted owners. It bears the burden of hauling the gear and the supplies of those adventures like a pack mule of the past. A beast of burden if you will. It will never crawl the Rubicon, or be the darling farkle strewn show truck of social media fame, nor will it be the focus of the adventure itself. But it is loved for being what it is, a damn good truck. Introducing the Grey Mouser, or Mouser for short...

2015 Tacoma TRD Sport DCSB

Latest photo:




Drivetrain: 4.0 V, 5-speed automatic, 3.73 gears, LSD

Suspension: Bilstien 5100s front set at 2.5”; OME Dakar Heavy Springs with Bilstien 5100s at the rear; Firestone Air Lift bags with Daystar cradles

Tires/Wheels: Factory Toyota split 5 spoke Tundra rims: 255/80/17 Cooper ST Max

Exterior Upgrades:

^GFC Camper

^SOS Off-road Concepts Aluminum Streamline Front Bumper

^ComeUp 9s Winch

^White Knuckle Off-road Rock Sliders

^ Baja Designs fogs

^Wilco Tire Carrier

^Slee mount and ARB Singke stage compressor

^Onboard 12v water pump

^Kickass Products Shower Cube

Interior Upgrades:
^OCD Console Organizer and Storage Tray
^Husky Weatherbeater Floor Liners
^Covercraft Ballistic/Waterproof seat covers front and rear.
^DYI 100% rear seat delete
^ARB Fridge
^Hooke Road ceiling molle panel

Adventures to Date:

>Little Juniata River run: 4/15/2016
>Ohiopyle State Park: 5/25/2016
>Upper Peninsula of Michigan: 8/6/2016
>Pine Creek Gorge; Pa Wilds: 7/28/2017
>Canadian Maritimes: Nova Scotia/New Brunswick 8/6/2017
>Pennsylvania Wilds: Loyalsock State Forest, Worlds End & Rickettes Glen State Parks 7/20/2018
>Hocking Hills State Park & Serpent Mound 8/5/2018
>New York: Rock City State Park
>Allegheny Nation Forest 5/10/2019
>Pocono Mountains/Hickory Run SP 8/10/2019
>West Virginia Backcountry 9/1/2019
>Hickory Creek Wilderness; ANF 1/2020
>Moshannon State Forest 3/8/2020
>Allegheny National Forest 5/2020
>Pennsylvania Wilds; Quehanna Wild Area 5/2020
>Pennsylvania Wilds; 5 Forests Wander 6/2020
>South Dakota Road Trip 8/2020
>Montana/Wyoming Road Trip 10/21
>West Virginia Taco Run 8/22
>Utah Wander 8/23
>Michigan Mitten Run 8/24

 

Wow those are some serious trip reports and awesome truck!

 

It all started when the wife wanted a truck of her own, something to commute to work in the wintry conditions here and to haul her kayak without having to borrow my truck. I was tooling around happily in my modified 1st gen Tundra known as Fafhrd. He was our adventure truck and had pretty much been up and down the east side of the country taking us on numerous adventures...



So we bought the last ‘15 model truck on the dealers lot for the wife’s ride.



Together they were a good paring between modded and practical. Her plan was to keep the truck as stock as possible and fit it out for travel and commuting



But plans, as you know, seldom stay true to their original intent.

 

that's a badass tundra.... updates?

 

Ooof, forgot I even started a thread on this truck here. Back in the day we only had limited internet connection and this forum was hard to upload up on. But thanks to Starlink those days are over, might as well try and flesh this tale out. As long as I can find the pics and remember what was what.

Sooo, well the truck was the wives it was used mainly as a daily driver and occasional trip rig. The Tundra was the adventure truck, but the Mouser got to do stuff especially if there were kayaks involved. In these days we did a lot of white water paddling and the Tacoma was better set up to hauls both boats and gear.

The truck was left untouched except for swapping out the original rims with the factory rims off my Tundra. The missus just liked the look of them. Also we added a set of Firestone airbags and Daystar cradles to the rear to help with the heavy cap and fir when we towed are camping trailer set up. Other than that, stock as could be…

And than I inherited it after the Tundra hit 310,000 miles and my wife talked me into selling it. But I’m not good at keeping things stock…

 

…and the Tacoma Mod Starter Kit showed up in the garage.

Bilstien 5100s front and rear, OME Heavy springs, 255/80/17 Cooper STMaxx tires along with the airbags and Daystar Cradles.





Now with the Mouser being more truckish, we ran it about on trips big and small.



The Mouser and my FJ Munnin loaded up for a family whitewater trip to the Youghiogheny River in SW PA.

For longer excursions our Maggiolins RTT got hoisted up on the contractor cap.



Dispersed campsite in the Monongahela NF along the Canaan Loop.


Tooling along the big dusty roads of Dolly Sods, WV.



Out in the PA woods awaiting meat wagon duties during bear season.

 

For the next round it was more a focus on protection. A set of White Knuckle Off-road sliders got mounted up, beautiful bits of steel these things are.



For recovery and front end protection we went with the SOS aluminum version of the slimline bumper. The main reasons were light weight, keeping a more work truck look and denying the eventual rust of living in a rust belt state with long winters and plenty of salt. Again this was a well made piece and has help up extremely well over the last 6 years. A couple of recoveries and a deer bounce don’t even register. Paired with the bumper was a Come Up 9s winch.

 

Ran the truck this way for a few years, wandering about locally here in the big woods or PA and out and about other states.

Moshannon State Forest, PA…



Black Hills of South Dakota…



Red River Gorge, Kentucky…



Sproul State Forest, PA…

 

Soon it was time to fiddle with the interior. The plan was to maximize interior storage area.

First up was the addition of a ceiling Molle Panel and a quartet of Molle bags. We use these to store our backpacking hammock systems and extra layers of cold weather gear or rain gear depending on the season.




I had done a 40% seat delete but decided to go a full 100%. Being frugal I made my own. The drivers side is made out off a consumer grade scaffolding plank and some extruded aluminum rails. It mounts to the lower seat mounts which allows it to pivot so accessing the under seat storage compartments is still possible. This houses the fridge.



The other side is made up of 80/20 extruded, a poplar glue up panel and some heavy wall aluminum angle.



This side holds some Rigid storage boxes. Two bigger ones that we use as suitcases and two of the smaller ones. One is a dry food storage box and the other is a ultralight camp kitchen for when we don’t want or need the full kitchen kit and caddoodle.



This has worked very well for us since we put it all in.

 

Subbed. This looks like a cool build with little broverlander silliness. Sad to see that beautiful Tundra go though.

 

Thanks! We are definitely not overlanders but travelers with a truck. We borrow from some overlanding gear but also stuff from ultralight backpacking, trades and just old fashion rural ingenuity.

I hated to let the Tundra go but at 310,000 miles on the odometer it had earned the right for retirement.