LFaub's 4x4 conversion/camper build

Wrapped up the rear bumper this weekend. Huge thanks to @snowsk8air2 for helping with the welding and letting me use his garage.

Bumper is a weld-together kit from Coastal Offroad, and uses a much beefier 4xInnovations swingout kit.

 

For anyone who wants to do this setup: the coastal bumper won’t allow the 4x swingout unless you find a way to make the tailgate clear the latch pin. I opted to notch the bumper about 2 inches to allow that pin to clear. Hope this can be helpful for anyone else’s future projects!





We ended up welding the latch pin to this new tab, allowing the tailgate to drop open all the way

 

Nice work! Looks like it came out clean!
Wish mine came out this nice. I need to work on my welding skills some more.

 

Apparently I haven't posted on my own thread in almost a year. Whoops.

Here's last year in review:

Did plenty of trail exploring to check out all the lakes we suddenly had after last year's winter





My girlfriend moved in and we did a lot of trail runs around the San Fransisco Peaks





Went to @snowsk8air2's Labor Day run which was a blast



and while I was there, I tried camping in the rain, which required a little help from an EZ-UP, but it kept me dry! Slept through a thunderstorm that dumped on Northern Arizona most of the weekend



I'm very happy with my current setup though. Tempted to do a bed box to get me above the wheel wells, but beyond that, I'm very happy with my camping setup. The stability and wind protection beats a rooftop tent any day, if you ask me!





Hopefully I'll remember to post more. If not - see y'all in a year!

 

They’re pricey and you can probably build something of the sort way cheaper. But the decked storage systems are pretty nice. That would put you sleeping above the wheel well and have some nice storage still.

 

Hey @lafub03
If you ever get a chance, I would love to see how you routed the wiring for your ditch lights, and the antenna cable off to the back antenna. Also, how you routed power up to the lights on top of the camper shell. Thanks!

PS: this write up was HUGELY helpful to me.

 

Glad to hear my write-up came in handy!

I routed my ditch lights up and around my hood hinges. The clearance looks a lot tighter than it is, and I've never seen any signs of the wires getting pinched. I wired the two lights parallel with each other, and routed my passenger side light through the cowl at the back of the hood.





as for the rack lights and radio antenna, there's a pass-through in the storage compartment in the back of the cab on your driver's side - should have your emergency bottle jack in there. That pass-through goes straight to the bed, where I've fished my wires around the bedliner and to the rearmost driver's-side corner of the truck. From there I put my antenna cable to a homemade bracket on the back of the truck, and my lights are wired through a hole I drilled in the top of the camper. I've got those lights on a plug so I can disconnect them easily if I ever need to take the camper off.

 

How easy was it swapping the electronic valve body into the A340F tranny? Did you run into any issues at all? and were you able to reuse your original wiring harness? I'm currently in the same boat. I have a 4X4 tranny with a kick down for my '03. Thanks for the help.

 

Wasn't too bad so long as you don't mind smelling like ATF for a couple days lmao. I really didn't run into anything that would give cause for alarm, main thing was just that the bolt lengths didn't match my Haynes Manual, but the transmissions at least matched each other so I was still able to write down where each bolt came from. With this kind of work it pays to mind the details, so just be sure to take your time and keep yourself organized.

Regarding your question on the wiring harness, you'll have to swap that too, but only the small harness for the throttle valve system. Toyota really did just replace the mechanical cable with an electrical system, and they did it as cheaply as possible by changing as little as necessary, which works in our favor! Swapping the harness is as straightforward as pulling the grommets out and feeding the wires in through the exact same hole that you'll pull the throttle valve cable out of.

Looks like you found my write-up thread, which I'm glad to see! It's been a few years since I've done it, but if you have any other questions or want to know any details let me know and I'll answer what I can!

 

I wanted to check in to confirm that everything is working properly.

I am starting to compile parts for my own 4x swap and like you I have an 03. I would rather swap the valve body & Torque converter then the other option of swapping the output shafts.

Thank you for documenting your efforts.