aemravan's build thread - project TacoRunner

[aemravan]

Just waiting on some turn knobs to deliver from Amazon in place of the hex head bolts. Otherwise everything is mounted and looking damn good.

One thing I noticed that has me questioning if I need to do anything about it is some water I found inside of the ladder assembly when I burned through with the welder a little.. since I have through-holes in the cross members, it looks like a little water is getting in here and there during hard rains.. I'm sure REALLY long term this would cause rust.. I just don't know how soon it would be a concern, and whether or not I need to drill a drain hole at the bottom of each member.. I'll probably run a bead of caulk around the holes just to keep the water out, but haven't decided if I need to drill a hole yet or not.

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[aemravan]

Amazon for the win. The knobs are a whole lot easier and user friendly than the hex head bolts lol.

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[aemravan]

Started with cleaning the garage ended with making the shovel mounts for the hi lift jack. Now just need the paint to dry. Went a simple route that seems to work pretty good.

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[aemravan]

Finally had some camping therapy this weekend.

Great time out in the cold. But I need to do it more often to dial in my setup .. finding a lot of inefficiencies in my current setup

*internet crapped out before I finished updating**here's the rest of the post:

on the inefficiencies.. the hi-lift jack setup is great.. for transport and maybe to wheel with.. but it gets in the way for the camping setup (particularly the awning) which makes it a pain to have to remove every time I want to set up.. I'm questioning whether I even need it... the bottle jack should do plenty for getting the axle up high enough to replace a tire.. and I have a winch for recovery.. sure the jack has it's time and place... but I'm rethinking whether its a standard go-to for overlanding trips or not..

Another thing I came across is the pack-out situation... I feel like though very outfitted and useful, the drawer setup for the kitchen and storage along with the fridge, take up quite a bit of packing room obviously.. I found myself throwing stuff in the backseat pretty extensively .. which won't work if I want to take the family camping.. for a solo trip it's not an issue, i have 3 available seats to use up (aside from the whole emergency/accident situation of not wanting heavy shit flying around unsecured aspect of course) but for the times when those can't be used I really need to re-evaluate what not only what I bring, but how I bring it.

Between the tool and recovery bag alone I use up quite a bit of space.. but then everything else is fairly bulky as well. So I really need to spend some time and do some test-packing at home when I'm not in a rush to hit the road to see what I can improve. I found myself having random stuff throw into random places without fully utilizing the space.. so maybe I just need to spend some time and come up with a better strategy. One thing I'll say is that packing clothes into a back-pack is a terrible idea for quick access at the camp ground lol.

As much as I hate accessing things on the roof rack.. I think I need to better use the space/basket I have up front and get some things up there for better efficiency... but I definitely don't want to go back to hard-mounted cases.. maybe I just need to get better and quicker and tie-down straps to hold down whatever I need to get up there.

oh, and I forgot to mention, the jerry can setup worked like a dream! I didnt' need them for this trip but decided to run through the motions of what it would be like to fill them, transport them and then use them to fill the rig on the trail. Worked like a charm with no issues. Just need to make sure you stick the gas pump nozzle all the way in so it doesn't splash out against the vent tube, lesson learned but yea.. it's nice to have 40Liters (10-ish gallons) of extra fuel with you for those hard-to-reach places. That should be just over a half tank extra fuel on demand. Only scary thought is a rear-end collision with a larger rig but they are pretty high up so hopefully that doesn't ever become an issue.

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[daprotege5]

Love your rig!! dam those 35's look badass!! definitely trying to get mine similar, eventually. have the bilstein/ome combo sitting in the garage. so slowly building her up. probably won't up the tire size until next year once these wear out, the ones on there now are literally brand new 265/65/17. hopefully i'll have the SRQ bumper before the summer, as their like 2 hrs away from me and i can pickup locally.

 

[zguy1]

Man, that is some setup you got there! You have almost everything that I would like to have on my truck when I do a road trip. I’ve done almost 2 months and 10,000 miles on a road trip out west. I slept in the back of my 4runner most nights and outside in a tent when I had some amazing campsites along the coast in California. Every couple of nights or so I would stay in a hotel. I did that trip with a small stove, cooler, coffee press, water, cot, tent, sleeping bag, pillow and a wool blanket to insulate the back floor of the truck.

 

[aemravan]

Love your rig!! dam those 35's look badass!! definitely trying to get mine similar, eventually. have the bilstein/ome combo sitting in the garage. so slowly building her up. probably won't up the tire size until next year once these wear out, the ones on there now are literally brand new 265/65/17. hopefully i'll have the SRQ bumper before the summer, as their like 2 hrs away from me and i can pickup locally.

Thank you! Long time in the making and finally at a point where I decided I'm not dumping anymore money into (except repairs and maintenance) and just trying to enjoy what it is now with more off-road trips.

35's have been great, and are quickly becoming the new "33's" lol. My goal (purely aesthetically) is to have it on 37's at one point. 35's are pretty straight forward but will take some cutting, grinding and beating on the pinch-weld/firewall area as well as the body mount. If you want to retain full stuff/articulation in the rear it will take a bit of work as well. I had to push my axle back probably close to 1" to keep from having to cut into the door/flare for clearance and the rear coastal offroad bumper was modified/cut back 1 inch to make room for the tire at full stuff. But overall it's very doable to get the 4th gen functional on 35's.

 

[aemravan]

Man, that is some setup you got there! You have almost everything that I would like to have on my truck when I do a road trip. I’ve done almost 2 months and 10,000 miles on a road trip out west. I slept in the back of my 4runner most nights and outside in a tent when I had some amazing campsites along the coast in California. Every couple of nights or so I would stay in a hotel. I did that trip with a small stove, cooler, coffee press, water, cot, tent, sleeping bag, pillow and a wool blanket to insulate the back floor of the truck.

That sounds like an amazingly good time... definitely a bucket-list thing for me.. extended trip somewhere.. preferably out west, but I won't complain lol... as you have proven with your ability to spend 2 months on the road.. everything I have is completely unnecessary to get out... but does make it for a bit of a glamping vs camping trip lol. I feel like I spent more time building and setting it up rather than enjoying the outdoors, but now that it's more or less complete maybe I can change that.

 

[aemravan]

Neighbors look at me funny crawling in and out of my tent in the driveway lol.. but drying eveything out is important to keep mold and mildew away..

Hard to tell, but I have a few small slithers of canvas that don’t quite tuck fully under the cover so they stay exposed… and with the constant exposure looks like I not only have a little fading but also a couple of spots of mold developing that I need to treat.. a little tempting to sleep in it tonight if it wasn’t in the driveway and with temps dropping to low 30s lol.

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[rdruss]

60 years ago I slept outside in a tent in sub 30 degree temps on a boy scout outing and was really not prepared for it, one of most miserable nights I can remember!

 

[aemravan]

60 years ago I slept outside in a tent in sub 30 degree temps on a boy scout outing and was really not prepared for it, one of most miserable nights I can remember!

yea I can only imagine.. You don't need a built-in kitchen with an RTT to enjoy a night out.. but you definitely need at least some level of cold-weather gear to have a decent night in sub-freezing temps. Nothing will ruin my camping like being overly hot or overly cold at night.

 

[aemravan]

All this time camping and I just find out you’re not supposed to run the propane tanks upside down [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]. Come to find out my issue I’ve been having with the stove is completely self induced. In all my camping excitement I never noticed that my stove sits too close to the side for the tank to rest in it’s angled position. Had to notch the wall a little and all is well now.

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[aemravan]

I prefer it dirty .. but doesn’t look half bad cleaned up either

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[4RunnerAquasport]

Never heard that about the propane. I'll have to pay attention to that, if I ever get back out camping.

You do L-brackets in all 4 corners of the box?
and are they anchored under the factory D-rings?

 

[aemravan]

Never heard that about the propane. I'll have to pay attention to that, if I ever get back out camping.

You do L-brackets in all 4 corners of the box?
and are they anchored under the factory D-rings?

Yea.... probably explain the sporadic flame and freezing of the feedtube i've been seeing apparently it has something to do with liquid propane feeding in instead of it having a chance to outgas vertically and into the regulator. Same reason you're supposed to sit the large 20lb tanks upright when using. There's a minimal vertical separation needed for it to outgas (or so I read in a quick search after stumbling across a video that mentioned vertical placement).


For the L-brackets, not 4 corners, just the 2 outer ones that tie under the factory D-ring's. The back of the box screws the 2 halves between themselves and then each corner has a factory 6mm bolt hole that it ties into. That side is pretty solid. My L-brackets are bent from a thing gauge material and allow for some bouncing that I'm currently working on addressing.. I have a pretty solid set of steel L-brackets from a work project that i'm hoping to re-purpose IF i an get them to reach the factory d-ring location.

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

Yea.... probably explain the sporadic flame and freezing of the feedtube i've been seeing apparently it has something to do with liquid propane feeding in instead of it having a chance to outgas vertically and into the regulator. Same reason you're supposed to sit the large 20lb tanks upright when using. There's a minimal vertical separation needed for it to outgas (or so I read in a quick search after stumbling across a video that mentioned vertical placement).


For the L-brackets, not 4 corners, just the 2 outer ones that tie under the factory D-ring's. The back of the box screws the 2 halves between themselves and then each corner has a factory 6mm bolt hole that it ties into. That side is pretty solid. My L-brackets are bent from a thing gauge material and allow for some bouncing that I'm currently working on addressing.. I have a pretty solid set of steel L-brackets from a work project that i'm hoping to re-purpose IF i an get them to reach the factory d-ring location.

I'm thinking of using the turn-buckles like others have done. That way I can check the tension periodically and make sure nothing is getting loose.

 

[aemravan]

I'm thinking of using the turn-buckles like others have done. That way I can check the tension periodically and make sure nothing is getting loose.

I thought about that for mine .. but I use every bit of the side space when going camping so getting a turnbuckle in there would mean losing that space .. doesn’t sound like much but you should see how I overpack for 1 night [emoji23][emoji23]


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[aemravan]

Got tired of my torn seats but wasn’t about to spend upholstery shop money … not too shabby for $90.. definitely beats what it was before. I know it’s black and not tan but I prefer a dark interior .. will probably paint the trim of the seats at some point or just send it as it .. coverado off of eBay .. even came with a back seat half but I’m not installing that.

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[phatcheeks]

Got tired of my torn seats but wasn’t about to spend upholstery shop money … not too shabby for $90.. definitely beats what it was before. I know it’s black and not tan but I prefer a dark interior .. will probably paint the trim of the seats at some point or just send it as it .. coverado off of eBay .. even came with a back seat half but I’m not installing that.

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Got a link for those seat covers? I like that fit

 

[aemravan]

Got a link for those seat covers? I like that fit

it's not 100% perfect but for the money I couldn't complain. wish the headrest was bit more simple. As far as a link, I don't unfortunately.. i got these off of Ebay. They are Coverado universal SUV covers, there's a few different variations around.