Rafe's Build - Meet L.O.R.A

Some other small things were done after this that I have zero pics of. One of which is replacing the cracked and worn out Window washer fluid res. I purchased an OEM one from Amazon and lucked out that it was correct, had the right holes and went together nicely. Ordered a new fill cap also as mine was just simply gone. Tested after and everything works as it should. Good to have the ability to clean the window again Though I will likely be doing the sprayer mod from the honda. The spray pattern on the stock is odd and too strong in one place.

Put a fresh set of Michelin wipers on as the current wipers were toast from the AZ sun I am sure.

Now if you've been paying attention you'll notice I installed a CB radio but not an antenna. That's because it was a project all of it's own, which we'll cover next!

 

Ok, so I've always dug the 80's off-road look of the long whip antenna's mounted to a fender in the back of the vehicle. I plan to do both CB and UHF on this rig so I wanted to keep the antenna's away from each other and hopefully utilize the full 18' of coax that is ideal for signal length. So looking at things and where the electrical harness is in the truck it seemed logical to install the CB antenna away from electronics to avoid EMI, which meant a passenger-side install. So I decided on a ball mount with a 102" hustler antenna. So that with the correct length coax and antenna I should have a good SWR reading and quality send-receive abilities.

The UHF antenna will be mounted on the bull bar on the front of the vehicle also on the pass side.

This is going to make a lot of people cringe really badly. So I am sorry in advance if drilling into the bed of a Tacoma makes you sick.

Mocking it up and figuring out where I wanted it to go. Held in place to mark holes etc...

Tools required

Giant Center hole drilled:

Next are the three screw holes

The finished product. Though I will likely paint the ball and spring black at some point as I work to remove all the chrome junk. (disregard that odd thing on the front )

I haven't tested out the SWR or had a chance to play with things yet. Verified it works though! Ran the coax to the rear inside the frame on the pass side. We will have to add some pics of that at some point.

 

So I hadn't planned on doing the front bull bar this early in the build. In fact, the armor was going to be one of the last items on the list. Because I don't intend to extreme off-road with this rig, just want to get someplace if I want to go. That being said, I really disliked how much higher the front of the vehicle was without the additional weight. I was also happy for front end protection for non 4x4 reasons (deer, crazy drivers,bigfoot, etc). So I decided to go ahead and purchase the bull bar and get it installed.

Found a sweet deal on Amazon with free shipping on the bumper. Initially bumper was like 14 days to delivery when ordered. However, it showed up in two days. They called the next day after purchase to setup delivery as it comes via semi. So yeah go Amazon and two days shipping free on a 125lbs bumper

Install instructions as everyone said were complete garbage as expected. The various write-ups on here and videos really helped. Otherwise, the install went quite well. Very happy with the build quality of this bumper. ARB does make some good stuff. While I had to pull the grill to install the bumper I went ahead and sanded, primed and painted it a satin black and the Toyota logo red with a satin clear coat as that is my accent color of choice. Here are some action shots of all the work. There are many write-ups around so I won't bother giving any instruction here.

Bumper getting delivered after two days!!

Tons of packaging:

All un-packed:

Grill removed:

Stock bumper removed: (You can see the corner of the new washer fluid res peeking out in this pic lol)

Fitting up the ARB:

Painting of the grill: (lost count of the amount of coats of both paint and clear coat)

Close up of the emblem:

I decided to tackle plasti-dipping the rest of the emblems at the same time. You can notice them blocked off in the images above.

Bumper, grill and emblems all finished up and re-installed:

 

Nice build. Always glad to see old trucks get a new life.

 

Trucks looking good!!!

 

Very nice job! I am fighting the urge to stray from stock.........

 

Thanks. I've really enjoyed working on this rig so far. Probably like 10% done with mods. I know the feeling about wanting to keep it stock. But I bought this specifically to build for adventuring. All the upgrades I do relate to that. She will never be a rock crawler, extreme off-road machine.

So speaking of adventure... on my last camping trip to the Prescott National Forest a couple of weekends ago I noticed on the drive up my trans temp was a tad warmer than I wanted (215-225 range on long hills). This was the first time in warmer weather fully loaded with people, gear and animals. The engine temp has been starting to rise by a few degrees also (199-200) on these trips and we aren't into the hot season yet.

Another part of this equation is that I am coming up needing to do my timing belt (at 90k miles and 7 years old by PO). Which will include replacing the water pump and thermostat while I have everything opened up. So this now sent me down a rabbit hole for a couple of reasons. I've got a truck that clearly isn't cooling as it should anymore, with a radiator of unknown age (looks to be OE) and a transmission cooler that is also not the best and can cause the dreaded pink milkshake.

So I would need to be replacing the timing belt and accessories, radiator, add an additional trans cooler & filter. Lots of these are steps in the wrong direction given that I will be swapping to a 5-speed manual. I also wanted to upgrade the radiator with a better quality, larger unit. The Koyo radiator I selected doesn't have a built-in transmission cooler. This and the thought of purchasing more items for temporary use somewhat forced my hand to start the swap to the manual transmission.

So the next post will start listing all the items purchased so far (items needed and related to the swap), timing belt kit and tool. More info to come...

 

I decided to start a separate thread for the transmission swap to manual.

You can check it out here if you're interested.

 

Nice work!

 

Nice looking build, I see you were able to find one of the older ARB bumpers that still had the traditional powdercoat instead of the stupid Integrit finish they put on them now. mind you...i don't mind the look of the integrit finish... but it is such a PITA to clean. excited to see how it looks with new tires!

 

Nice build my man!

 

Nice build, you're very detail oriented. Looking forward to seeing the F5s with 285s. I just put gunmetal with 285 Toyo AT3s on mine a couple weeks ago and they are nice.

 

Thank you! It's a labor of love for sure. Spent stupid amounts of money because I am stubborn, want a 5-speed and manual drive train. Worth it in the long run though. Won't need to be taking this to Toyota if it's broke! (3rd Gens scare me...)

 

Haha, detailed oriented... that's a nice way to put it!

Wow that sounds like a really nice combo! Any pictures?

 

Good looking rig.

 

Thanks, been admiring yours as well.

Need to update this thread soon. Been a bit hectic getting everything sourced and ordered. Was just going to do the swap to manual trans and transfer case for now, but it snow balled into both the 4x4 conversion and the manual swap w/ a ton of extra stuff... as these things go.

So stuff that is ordered/awaiting install for the overall build: (to help keep my sanity)

- Drive shafts have been shortened by AZ driveshaft, 12" and fully balanced at some stupid high RPM I will never reach.
- New front drive shaft en route from wholesale import parts along with all fresh hardware from Toyota
- 4x SCS F5 Wheels in Gun Metal w/ 3.5 BS to support the tire choice & required new lugs.
- 5x Cooper STT Pro's in 285/75/16 from Amazon (1of5 arrived thus far)
- SPC UCA's
- SPC Cam bolts sets (both sides)
- 8" extended rear brake line
- Prop valve drop bracket
- Dakar AAL's for my OME setup to help offset the topper weight
- Full set of Durobumps (4.25" rear) and new bushings for front diff arm mounts
- Carrier drop kit 1"
- Front diff drop kit 1"
- New OEM LCA bushings
- New OEM LBJ's both sides
- Rebuild steering rack from Low-Range OR (comes with new inner and outer rods )
- Rebuild OEM CV axles from Toyota
- All seals to refresh front diff before installing
- Locally purchased a 4.10 front diff w/ ADD
- Manual jack shaft tube & inner axle extension & bearing from Toyota (to swap it over to non ADD)
- Aisin manual locking hubs x2 and front bearing kit from low range OR
- New stud kit for manual hubs from LR-OR
- New wheel hubs & studs from Toyota
- Manual trans and transfer case from Ebay (JDM)
- New front and rear seals for transmission
- New boot, shift fork, throw-out bearing
- Redline synthetic MT-90 for the R150F
- Redline 75-90 for the front and diff and transfer case
- New slave cyl and hard line, all clips and brackets to mount it
- Used ECU with 4x4 and MT from 2003
- New interior trim section for boots
- Marlin Crawler short throw shifter
- Twin sticks from Front range OR
- Entire set of items from Toyota to rebuild the starter, end to end

Freshly installed items include:
- New Koyo alum radiator w/o auto cooling line fittings
- Reman 105 amp alt upgrade
- Custom built battery cables (crimped, soldered, liquid taped, heat shrunk and tinned lugs)
- Entire aircabinman kit off ebay for timing belt
- New rad hoses & oil cooler hoses
- New fan clutch (HD/tow) Green
- New fan clutch bracket
- Re-sealed oil pan (was leaking and way easier to get to without 4x4 shit in the way)
- New RMS and re-sealed RMS housing
- New pilot bearing, flywheel and pressure plate (OEM, Marlin, Aisin)
- Marlin 1200 lbs clutch kit
- New Aisin clutch master cyl
- New hard line (clutch master to flex hose)
- New Stainless Steel clutch flex hose from Marlin
- New Battery AGM walmart plat 4 year replacement (nothing special)
- New valve cover gaskets, moons and cam plugs and spark plug tube gaskets
- Painted valve covers red

Have a few things I can work on while I wait for parts and stuff. Will get some pics of everything and put them up as we go.

So much to keep track of. Still need to figure out what I want to do with my sway bar... leaning to extending it rather than removing it.

 

You've been busy

 

I'm jealous, I can't even get my truck in my garage and you have a couch!

 

Dude it's been nuts lately. I am so ready to have this behind me and be out wheeling again soon. Figured the forced downtime was a good time to get it done but as usual it takes longer and costs more than expected

I've zero regrets though! Enjoying the actual building a lot... the finding, ordering and paying for stuff, not so much lol.

 

Haha yeah for a bit I guess I did. Box of transfer case parts where it was now lol.

I'd take half the space, air conditioned