Hey everyone I’m Chris and I’m trying to get back into the 3rd gen world. I had an 03 Taco TRD 5speed/Elocker that I bought almost brand new in 04. I had it for a few years then sold it 😞 it was a great truck and never let me down so I’m in the market for a more family friendly version of my old truck.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading and watching YouTube videos and the plan is something like this. 3.4, 5speed, taco box (undecided if it’ll be stock or 4.7) to stock case, elocker if I can find the perfect rig but some type of locker and a selectable front locker, leaning towards 4.88’s but I need to play with the gear calculator a little more and see, a skinnier 33, I’ve always liked 33x9.5’s but there don’t seem to be many options there anymore so maybe 255/85/16’s and of course a heavy dose of armor. The tundra break mod seems like a winner, I know I warped more than a few rotors in my old truck. Plenty of other little things. The intended use would be Family overload, crawler, hunting rig that I can drive to where ever these activities would be taking place.

I’m my rig searches so far I’m seeing a lot of rigs with potential that have either higher mileage than I’d like or engine issues. So I started pricing replacement engines and noticed that for the price difference I might as well get a much lower mileage jdm or rebuild than but from a dismantler. So here’s the question does anyone know of a reputable place to get either a rebuild or low mileage import motor either with cheap shipping or with in a reasonable area of Santa Rosa ca?

Sorry for the long post, I ramble sometimes

YOTA1 has good rebuilds and they are over near Modesto, Timmy the Toolman has a video for swapping the engine. You’d probably find a manual without an elocker for significantly cheaper than with. Then just do ARB lockers front/rear. Some of those manual/elocker/low mileage trucks are fetching crazy $$. Not sure if you have access to a welder but if your spending this much loot IMO you midswell just go to 35’s if your considering them at all. Also don’t forget about all the suspension/maintenance odds and ends that you’ll want to replace as well. Timmy the Toolman pretty much has videos on everything, I highly recommend you check out his YouTube channel if you haven’t already.

I’ve seen a few of Timmys videos. Honestly as far as the 35’s I’ve been floundering, I’ve got 2 5.29 Detroit 3rds and a front housing 🤔 but then I’d be better of with dual mini cases rather than the taco box, are there many people still on ifs with 35’s that aren’t mall crawlers and yeah I’ll pretty much be looking at the rig nonstop trying to find an excuse to weld something, welding is my happy place.

Well sounds like you have a lot to choose from haha. Some hard decisions, I would shoot for your end goal first instead of slowly building up to it so you don’t buy stuff twice though. There are tons of 4Runners on 35’s + IFS. If you plan on staying IFS check out northwestfab, if I would’ve seen his product before I ordered the tacobox I’m 99% sure I would’ve gone with that instead. I am an automatic though and it would’ve made the install a lot easier for my situation.

What are the pros of northwestfab's doubler over a taco box?

SOmeone may correct me, but I have been reading about this setup recently.

The main difference is the ability to use a 3rd Gen Tcase instead of having to source an older Gear driven Tcase.

There are a few pros/cons:
-you can source gears from pretty much any Toyota transfercase aside from the older cases (top shift gear driven tcases are going for 500$+ right now)

-the NWF case is about 2” shorter than the tacobox which makes it so automatics can use them without modifying the gas tank (j shift tcase only, multi mode will still hit tank)

-tacobox you can do 2.56 or 4.7 gears vs NWF box can only do 2.28 (I personally think 2.28 would be fine, I’m running 2.56’s)

-NWF shifter setup seems really legit

-NWF way more affordable and seems to be more in stock/not as long of lead times..