I regretted not documenting my last vehicle build so I thought I'd start here.

Purchased February 2020, just after our first daughter was born and 4 months before we were supposed to move back to the West Coast and be able to use this vehicle on more trails. Previous owner replaced her 2014 Limited with this one and this one was replaced with a 2020 Limited. She used it in the winter and had a different vehicle for non winter driving. It was garage kept with very little frame rust (just the welds and only on the surface) and all maintenance done on time. Price was hard to pass up and I had been looking for about 9 months.

Day 1:




Both my wife and I hate chrome so that was the first thing to go. I also dislike temporary ways of dealing with problems so wrapping and plastidipping was a no go. Spent the time to take the chrome off the vehicle where possible/easy enough and sanded then painted with epoxy primer and automotive base and clear.





Dealer had replaced the two front tires shortly before purchase so I had two good ones and three (including spare) that had about 10k miles left on them. Took a 6" metal plate through one of the good tires while driving in NYC so needed four new tires. Total price was $1200 for replacement OEMs but neither of us liked those so started to look at other options. This was around memorial day and both Discount Tire and some online dealerships had sales going on. Ended up walking away with 5 grey TRD wheels and 5 Wildpeaks in 265/70/17 for $1400 and sold the Limited wheels and existing tires for $800. Got away with 50% off the price of replacing the crap stock tires. Since I am bad at remembering to take pics, here it is after chrome delete and new tires:



Added BD Squadron Sports in the fog light pocket and Alpharex Luxxs for headlights.



In retrospect, that pic should have been a sign for how bad the Squadron Sports were. Took them through a snowstorm over Snoqualmie Pass and they were worse than having high beams on.

The same trip over Snoqualmie Pass was when we went to visit my family for the holidays. I had an Armageddon Armor bumper sent to my parents' house knowing that any premade bumpers wouldn't fit perfectly. My dad and I ended up welding up most of the bumper and then cut some new pieces to make it line up with the Limited bumper and support the plastic better. Ignore the drippy paint. It was too cold to paint properly so this was a temp paint job to keep it from rusting on the trip back.








Changed out the Squadron Sports for Squadron SAEs. On the trip back over Snoqualmie Pass, they still sucked so I put the Sports back in and returned the SAEs.

Couple of other things were added over the last year. TRD bumper that I traded my old headlights for, Pro grille, and added a latch to the jack stand compartment. It had been sitting under the rear seat since we bought it because it didn't stay in.

awesome build so far.

the BD SAE's are hands down the worst SAE light on the market for that much money. they need to stick with off-road lighting only. I sold mine after turning them on like 2x. the "fix" they came out with was bush league.

Thanks!

I have some DD SS3s sitting in the garage waiting for install. It's currently 27 degrees outside and only 7 degrees warmer inside the garage so I'm waiting to install on a warmer day. The BD SAEs were from Amazon so they are already gone and refunded.

What exactly did you do to your door handles ?

Sorry. Was bad at picture taking because I wasn't sure if I was gonna do anything with them. They are the same gray now that all the other chrome is

Ahh okay so you sanded and painted the handles similar to the rest of the chrome. Thanks.

I'm assuming you didn't buy from a Toyota dealer? Replacing 2 tires on an AWD vehicle = bad news. Good that you got rid of those 20s. Hopefully you didn't have that setup too long.

We did buy it from a Toyota Dealership. It was about 2k miles before one took a steel plate but before that, I was looking for new tires to run. I've only owned AWD vehicles so was aware that replacing two was a bad idea. I've also learned over the course of my vehicle ownership, that dealerships and their technicians generally know less than me about my vehicle. That goes for anyone that cares about their vehicle and wants it to last, which applies for most people on this forum.

That is terrifying. And you're 100% right about knowledge. When my Dad test drove his, the salesperson we were working with was describing the suspension and extras that are found on a TRD Pro and claiming we were driving those things.

We were in a Trail. I didn't have the heart to bring it up at the time, but I definitely corrected the sales pitch on the way home...



Yours looks great so far. Good luck with the rest of the build!

Replaced the BD Squadron Sports with DD SS3 Pros last night. Was just in time for the snow storm. Made it to HD to pick up a toilet side mounted handle because my daughter broke one of ours. They didn't have it but the 4Runner handled beautifully.

Edit: also added an AVS hood protector because I was tired of rock chips on the hood and windshield

I didn't like the stock Limited key fob so bought the AJT fob. It was better than the stock one but I hated not having my emergency key just in case. When I visited my family back in December, my brother had just gotten a 3D printer so I asked if he could print a better key fob that kept the emergency key. It's pretty basic but it looks better than the stock one and is more functional than the AJT one. I like it and think it turned out well. Color matches fairly good as well.



I've also had some time to add some things to the interior.

ICS Fab Dash Mount with some cheap Amazon mounts. The middle one is for an iPad on longer trips.

Changed out the stock headunit for a Kenwood DMX706S with a Maestro RR2. I might swap this for a larger floating unit later but it serves its purpose well for now. By far the best feature is the front camera. It's set for a 10 second interrupt after shifting from reverse. It's helpful when parallel parking or making a multipoint turn in a small driveway. Can also be used to see directly in front of the bumper on a trail.



Last thing that was done was wrapping the fake wood in front of the passenger seat and swapping the shifter knob to the TRD one. I actually spent the time to completely dismantle the trim above the glovebox to wrap it.




I could have done a better job but I also don't know if I'll keep it that way. I think with a black leather interior it would look great but I'm torn with the redwood interior