‘02 Supercharged Double Cab

I purchased this 2002 Double Cab in July of 2023 with just over 200k miles. I’m a little late on this, but I wanted to go into more depth of the process of where it’s at today.

I bought it from Midwest 4x4’s in Hudsonville, MI. It had a recent frame swap to the current one in the pictures, which is mint for being up here in the rust belt (Illinois). It also had its entire suspension redone. I’ll make a list of everything that was done in the months prior to purchase.

Found it on marketplace and decided to make the 8 hour trek to drive up to the northern part of Michigan to pick it up. Probably paid a little too much for it, but it was exactly what I wanted, so I went for it. It’s been a fun project ever since!

 

It had some rust on the rockers, which is evident from some of the underside pictures that I previously posted. I didn’t like that so much, but everything else from the pictures seemed to be worth the risk of heading up to MI, so my wife and I made the drive up to purchase it.

Once I got there, I realized that the underside of the body and the frame itself was in pretty good shape other than the pinch welds of the rockers. That can be a fix I will do down the road. What was a surprise for me was how bad of shape the box/bed was in.

It had a drop in liner that collected water and rusted out all the corners of the bed. It also had some significant rust between the can and box that was covered with POR15.

Mechanically, the truck was sound and rode like a dream, so I made the purchase and decided I’d deal with the bed at a later date.

 

The only other few areas of “concern” were the rear axle, transmission crossmember, sway bar, and steering knuckles. All are something I intend on replacing. The cab itself and frame were something I wasn’t going to pass up here in the rust belt, and it had the j shifting transfer case, rear locker, and was a double cab to fit the kiddos, so it came home with me.

 

Here’s the list of things that were done in the ~3 months prior to me purchasing the trucks:

-Frame swap from a rust free southern donor
-New Tires @ 202k miles
-New Gas Tank
-New Steering rack & pinion
-New Lower Control Arms & LBJs
-Eibach Stage 1 Suspension
-Icon Add a Leaf
-New Upper Control Arms & UBJs
-New Drilled & Slotted Rotors w/ Ceramic Pads
-New Calipers
-1st Gen Tundra Ivan Stewart Rims
-New Headlights
-New Taillights
-New U joints
-TRD grille
-New Timing Belt & Water Pump

Im sure Im forgetting some things, but if I do, I’ll be sure to add that later in this thread

 

On the drive home, it ended up taking me through part of the night. Realized halfway home that the dash lights were 20 years old and half burnt out.

Got on Amazon the next morning and did the LED dash light swap. I would have been doing this anyway because I do not like the factory stock orange that they provide. I also didnt like the AC controls being orange, so I upgraded to the more modern looking Yaris knobs and found myself the 4Runner faceplate that is white instead of orange.

I don’t happen to have a picture of this one in my camera roll. I’ll have to snap a picture later and add it to the thread

 

I knew I wanted this truck for a cool camper set up in the future, so I knew I was going to need a camper shell. The problem is that I live in very rural Illinois and not many 1st gen Tacomas have survived this long. Let alone the rarer Double Cabs, and especially not the double cabs with camper shells.

It took a few weeks, but I found a camper shell in southern Illinois that I drove another 12 hour round trip to pick up. I got it on a steal for $400 and traded the guy my plastic bed liner. It’s white, so it doesn’t match the paint, but the day I do the rocker panels is the day I’ll do a full paint job of the truck so the shell will match.

 

My friend at work was a welder in a previous life, so I had home help me patch up the holes in the bed so I could get it bed lined and ready for use.

I lost a plastic wheel well liner in the process due to some fire, but luckily didn’t lose the whole truck!

I cleaned and painted the inside of the camper shell to match the bedliner and I really like the way it turned out.

 

This all happened within the first few weeks of owning the truck. In that time, I developed a misfire, only when climbing hills. Figured it had to be the spark plugs so I upgraded to some performance NGKs and cleaned the engine bay up in the process. Cleared the misfire right up!

 

I decided I was finally going to take the risk and remove the fender flares and see what horror awaited me. Much to my surprise… it was way worse than I was thinking. The box was shot, and all the work I just did in the past few weeks was for nothing.

I tried to grind off the bubbling rust and paint so it wouldn’t continue to spread as quickly, but it just kept eating and eating away at the bed. I decided it was time to stick the fender flares back on and start the search for a new bed.

 

It took a few months of searching, but I eventually found someone on one of the 1st Gen Tacoma Facebook pages who was planning on flat bedding his truck. Oddly enough, his box was mint! Just wanted a flatbed for work purposes?

We negotiated on a deal over the course of a few days. I wanted to see under the fender flares and he didn’t want to take them off until we agreed to a deal.

We eventually agreed on a deal. He was pretty handy, so he was able to prime and paint his white bed to my Lunar Mist Metallic color. He also made the drive from Minnesota and traded for my bed and some cash. All in all, maybe paid a little too much for it, but now I have a mint bed that was delivered to me, and another stressor off my plate.

 

The next project was a major paint day. I’m not a big fan of chrome, so I wanted to do the chrome delete and black out all the badging left on the truck. I also had to recreate the same unique black stripe design along the bottom quarter of the new bed and wrap it around the tail lights to flow with the tail gate.

The badging was done with some Rustoleum Hammered black spray paint and resecured with 3M trim epoxy.

The bed was taped off, sanded, and spray with black Raptor Liner to match the cab of the truck. I was able to spray the truck in the winter and have it cure in my heated garage. I’m a firefighter so I work 24/48 shifts, so I was able to give it plenty of time to cure before I took it out on the road again.

I also used the leftover Raptor Liner to hit the fender flares and help cover up the fading plastic that was starting to look really bad.

 

Nice truck. Great that you’re taking care of it.

Am I blind or dumb…I don’t see the supercharger.

 

Neither! The weekend just got the best of me. I have plenty left to update on the build still. Will get after it again here soon!