Crowe’s 01 Tacoma

Figured I’d start a build thread since this isn’t my daily anymore as of 6/01/2023

Bought my 01 Tacoma double cab in July 2018 with 211k miles for $11k.

After 44k miles I was wanted something newer for longer trips and being able to actually go highway speeds without it screaming doing 70mph.

Got a 2014 Tundra crewmax 1794 with 143k on 6/01/2023 but can’t decide wether I should sell my tacoma or not so figured I’d make a build thread from everything I’ve done to it since I owned it and since I just got new suspension and brakes and wanted to make a thread of the install.

Didn’t do much to the truck for a while other than Tundra big brake upgrade and a topper, until Jan 10th 2020 I bought an 01 donor truck in VT from another TW member for a manual swap.

After about 8 months of procrastinating, while using the donor as my DD for work, I finally started the manual swap in October of 2020 and after pulling the manual trans and painting it and waiting on all parts to come in before starting, it took me about a weekend to do the swap. A lot easier than I thought it would be honestly.


After I completed the manual swap I also swapped the arb bumper and rear bumper from the donor onto my truck.

And seeing that the donor as an 01 with a 97 grille and hood, I really loved the look. So I decided to swap the grille and hood to have a 97 front end, manual swapped 2001 double cab Tacoma.

Since then I didn’t do much at all other than normal maintenance.
Around early 2022 I replaced the upper control arms with JBA and they have been great!

Now in 2023 I decided it was time for new suspension since it was still stock suspension that the previous owner just put spacers on to lift it. Leafs eventually became very saggy and weak and front was pretty much like there was nothing there.

After a lot of searching I decided on,
-Bilstein 5100’s with OME 881 coils
-Dakar leaf springs & Bilstein 5100 in the rear as well

I originally bought the big brake upgrade kit from LCE not long after I got the truck and have had it for the past 5 years but now noticed the passenger caliper is seized, personally I would not recommend their kit, I think it’s way over priced when you can get a better kit for almost half the price but at the time I got it I wanted the best and thought LCE would supply the best parts but that wasn’t the case, at least with their brake kit. One caliper came in with rust in the piston out of the box, which they were really good about sending me a new one but still for the price they should supply better product.

6/06/2023
New brakes I got from Rock auto,
-Power stop 2005 tundra kit with 13WL calipers and new rotors, come powder coated already, didn’t buy them because they’re red but goes good with the JBA upper control arms which is cool.

as of 6/09/2023 I finished installed front brakes and front suspension parts

More to come as I continue to install the leaf springs and rear shocks





As she sits currently