Best way to buy a donor vehicle

So, I'm looking into gathering the parts required to convert my prerunner into a 4x4 (If you're going to tell me to just sell it please don't as I've seen a ton of threads devolve into bashing conversions) and was thinking it may be easier to just buy a donor vehicle to make the installation and part swapping easier. My main question is how do you guys go about getting donor vehicles? Do you scour craigslist daily, are online auctions a bad idea, wait for a part out, or should I just buy part by part? In my case, everything I need can come off of an FJ cruiser such as CVs, hubs, the transmission, transfer case, and the front diff, not to mention various odds and ends as well as hardware. I have to say auctions sound really intriguing, but my guess is they can turn into a royal PIA not being able to see the vehicle in person and having to deal with salvage yards. What do you guys recommend?