Crowe’s 01 Double cab Build

Figured I’d start a build thread since I’ve actually started doing work on my truck.

It’s long and half build/ story time so if you don’t care to read it all just scroll for the pics, I don’t blame you. Build thread actually starts in second post. Also, I have made a separate thread for the manual swap and will be doing a full write up there and just post some pics here.
When I got it



How she sits today


Little back story of ownership of the past two years.

This was my first vehicle purchase, back in July 2018

I’ve always had my eye on 1st gen Tacomas, the passed down 4Runner eventually rusted out and burned coolant like crazy with 295k so in 2018 I sold it and bought this. Only beauty on the outside though as I’ve come to find, I over paid, it wasn’t that well maintained, and had a bad trans from pink milkshake. But after almost 2 years of owning this truck and deciding wether I fucked up on this purchase I’ve decided to just get with it and build my dream 1st gen.

My loose plans for the truck are to build the perfect touring rig for me, from the occasional tough track to off the grid MTBing and skiing.



I bought the truck as is in the pic below with a rough country spacer life, wheels, and tires. I love the Toyo open countries so far, no cupping but also haven’t taken it on any long distance trips yet.


The day I bought the truck July 2018, next to my brothers 4th gen







I didn’t take any pictures of the following at the time:

The first thing I did on the truck was the tundra big brake upgrade as it needed brakes bad. My advice to anyone who has yet to do it, upgrade your brakes. It makes a crazy difference, at least with 33”s. Also, I went with the LCE kit, which wasn’t bad but really isn’t worth the money, after hearing nothing but good things about LCE their brake kit is kinda mediocre for the price. Calipers came in pitted on the inside of the pistons, they swapped them out though no problem.

I would definitely just piece together my own kit if I were to do it again. Also, G2 caliper paint kinda sucks or at least for me. I did two coats and a year later they are pretty rusty.


Then beginning of 2019 both sides of my CVs ripped and spewed grease everywhere, so ended up replacing both sides with NAPA because they have a good warranty so if they rip again I can just swap them out.


I didn’t really do anything to the truck for the past two years other than just normal maintenance.

In August 2019 the trans started slipping while in overdrive, then I did a little snooping around and realized the guy never emptied the coolant overflow tank and I failed to realize it still had some trans/coolant in it.
Then learned about the tasty pink milkshake


I’ve gotten about 12k miles out of the trans and it still drives today but have to keep OD off which is annoying for going over 45.


So after going back and forth of where to buy an auto trans to replace it with I learned that the manual swap was an option having found @SafetyDang write up. And a couple months of being on the fence I pulled the trigger and went down the manual swap trail. I picked up this 2001 gem with a 97 nose job, with almost 300k, manual, 4x4, bumpers and rock sliders, taken well care of for 10 years by @STLharryup in VT, other than the rust, got it for 4k. Drove it 1200 miles back home without a single issue and am still driving it now, I’ve put about 6-7k on it in the last 5 months and I don’t want to use it as my donor because I love it, considering it’s taken me on longer trips already than the double cab. The weekend after getting back from VT drove it another 500miles round trip to the Everglades and then two weeks after that drove it to Charleston SC for my brother to get a sprinter. No issues at all.


The day I got it Jan 10th 2020, featuring my little sister in the passenger seat:




Following below for the actual build

 

First off tackled my leaking valve covers and timing belt job last week, both at the same time. I recommend doing your lower intake gasket while you’re in there As mine was in rough shape when I removed the manifold. Sorry if I’m using the incorrect name but the lower manifold that has the fuel rails and injectors. A hot tip, tape your wiring harness so it doesn’t shatter and then zip tie it out of the way, it makes it crazy easy to remove the covers without the bullshit of the harness in the way.

 

Aside from mechanical maintenance at the moment i swapped on the ARB from the Donor and the 95.5-97 grille and hood a couple days ago. Finally starting to look like a proper build, in my eyes.

 

Today while I wait for my new crankshaft pulley, I pulled the bed off to address the rust. Tomorrow I will be using a brush wheel to remove the rust and then use ospho as a self etching primer and then painting and then giving it a coat of fluid film.



Seeing the bed off is giving me a ton of idea for a canopy on the back, Aussie style. Kinda like the tray of Shauns dirty 30 build on 4wd action but a little different. I like the idea of half canopy so I can still fit bikes and skis on the outside

 

Worked on the frame yesterday , used my angle grinder with a brush wheel and cleaned it down to the base for the most part. Some factory primer is still on there but all the rust is gone. No flaking rust on the exterior but some pitting and most of the welds were decently rusty behind the factory paint.

Plan to get it down to bare metal and then clear coat it with KBS diamond clear coat, so I can visually see if any more rust forms over time and be able to address it as it. Also going to coat the clear coat in fluid film just for shits and gigs. Not going to last forever but better than painting black and not seeing it until it gets too bad to fix.

Then I am going to fluid film the inside like crazy as I could feel some flakes coming off when I reached my finger through the drain holes near the back of the truck, which is where most of the rust is. I fluid film the inside when I got the truck but needs to be done at least once or twice a year to keep it really coated. I’ve seen a lot worse than mine but since I’m not using the truck everyday at the moment figured why not go heavy duty on rust prevention since it’s pretty much the killer of any vehicle especially a 20 year old Toyota.

 

Alright! Get after it buddy!

Glad that the old truck hasn't let you down.

 

She definitely hasn’t, engine is running better than my double cab at the moment. I don’t even want to swap the parts off it haha.

 

Well in that case I'd definitely recommend taking literally everything off and putting it back on with a little anti-seize, because Vermont winters...

For the engine, I'm not saying that correlation necessarily equals causation, but I did Mobil1 & a Toyota filter every 8-10k (ish, you can check the maintenance book I gave you hah).

 

I need to jump on that for sure while I’m still driving it. I’ve put a little fluid film on some stuff to stop the rust. Just yesterday I cut the rock sliders off to clean them up and weld them on the double cab. How she’s sitting today, not as pretty as when I got her from you haha

 

Finally started on my manual swap, just pulled the manual transmission from the old Yeti. I hated parking it in the back but hopefully soon I’m going to try to find a way to put my auto in it and make the wiring work and get her back on the road.