Thinkcooper's 2000 Sport 5 speed shenanigans built thread

[thinkCooper]

Thinkcooper's 2000 Sport 5 speed: life, shenanigans and build thread

Original owner of the aforementioned vehicle here. The truck curently has about 120K miles, and has been a great buddy in our lives. It's recently transitioned into its lazy days, relegated to hardware store runs and towing our rPod 177 HRE. The truck used to be Mrs. Thinkcooper's daily driver, but she just scored a new Lexus f-sport NX200T. She looks cute driving the Lexus, she looked cute driving the 4runner too. Lucky me.

 

[thinkCooper]

A little more about the truck. It started out life like this.

 

[thinkCooper]

The truck's been our faithful transpo on road/off-road mtb camping trips to Death Valley, Zion, Tucson, LA, Paso Robles, Burningman, Baja, Joshua Tree, Point Arena, Big Sur, Moab...

Pictures populating when I plug that photo drive in

 

[thinkCooper]

We love glamping with the 4runner.

 

[White Stripe]

I've worked on a lot of nx200s. Women love those things as well as the rx. That's a nice 4runner. Cool to see the price sheet.

 

[thinkCooper]

The NX200T sure makes her smile when driving, especially in Sport mode.

 

[thinkCooper]

Back in Summer 2013, we started thinking about getting a trailer as an alternative for camping to my converted '73 Kurbmaster box truck. What a great idea that turned out be. In October of 2013 I upgraded our tired stock shocks to Bilsteins and did the Tundra 231mm brake upgrade. Soon after we found our slightly used (2 year old) 177 HRE rPod.

Working on our vehicles has always been a great rationale for investing in tools. While I don't use the Power Bleeder much, when I have it's been indispensable. When doing the brake conversion, I installed new shoes in the rear and bled the hydraulic system. The Power Bleeder sure makes short work of that job.

 

[thinkCooper]

I've had a string of unusual vehicles over the years. Maybe the oddest was my 1973 Olsen Kurbmaster bread truck, on an International 1310 chassis, converted to a camper for Burninman. Hard to beat this beast for style points. But equally hard to rely on for safe transpo to and from the playa. We sure do have a thing for glamping.

 

[thinkCooper]

The most day to day useful mod for towing a camper trailer with our 4runner was installing Air Lift 1000 air bags in the stock rear springs. Here are three staged pictures to show 1. The stock springs sagging under load with a tongue weight of around 350 pounds. 2. After the Air Lift bags were installed and 3. With Air Lifts and a Fastway E2 Wright Distribution Hitch to lock the trailer's tongue and the truck's chassis into a relatively rigid single structure.

With the WDH and the Air Lifts, I can add pressure (typically under 25 psi) to tune the front/rear height of the 4runner to level it out, even when sporting a fully loaded truck and wet trailer.

 

[SCRunner12]

Nice 4runner and toys, also hi from Aptos!

 

[thinkCooper]

Hey buddy! Greetings from Live Oak near the boat harbor!

 

[NoVAphotog]

Love it.

 

[Hepar]

Dig it. Looks super clean. How do you like that 5th wheel? Think that's my next major purchase.

 

[LittleCaesar]

I have to ask if the Mrs misses the 5spd. Except for one woman I dated none including the current GF and ex wife could drive manual. Well come to think of it the ex really couldn't drive period.

If you use the 4runner to tote the 5th wheel around a good bit look into possibly installing some OME 906 springs in the rear even with the air bags.

Love the flames on the truck.

 

[SlickmisterN]

Very cool! what a beautiful area for that kinda stuff.

 

[thinkCooper]

Dig it. Looks super clean. How do you like that 5th wheel? Think that's my next major purchase.

We love the trailer. BTW, it's not a fifth wheel. Originally I wanted to buy a large RV, then we started looking at Airstreams, but would have needed to upgrade to a bigger tow vehicle to get the water storage, waste water storage and ammenities we were looking for. Turns out Airstreams are really heavy for their interior square footage and length. When we found out about rPods, they seemed the exact right solution.

They weigh under 4000 pounds. They carry 50 gallins of fresh water, with 30 gallon black and 30 gallon grey waste tanks. The Hood River Edition (HRE) version has a 4" frame lift for clearance. Ours has a slide out for the kitchen which opens up space; it also has a 3 fuel frudge unit. We also have a toilet and shower (wet bath) and trailer is equipped with a "queen sized" bed, AC, heat, a small dining area and under body storage. Plus at 6'4", I can actually stand up in it. I put in a marine inverter and we run a pair of 6 volt deep cycle batteries for 12V DC. All this in a trailer that's under 24 feet from ball to bumper.

 

[thinkCooper]

I have to ask if the Mrs misses the 5spd. Except for one woman I dated none including the current GF and ex wife could drive manual. Well come to think of it the ex really couldn't drive period.

If you use the 4runner to tote the 5th wheel around a good bit look into possibly installing some OME 906 springs in the rear even with the air bags.

Love the flames on the truck.

She is finally NOT missing the 4runner's 5 speed manual. The little Lexus we got her has this Sport mode and paddle shifters. She loves scooting along banging through the 8 (?) gears...

Mentioned a few posts above... I am running Air Lift 1000 airbags in the stock coils. The benefit from my POV to using stock coils and bags? 1. Our Sport rear coils were not sagging and simply upgrading to Bilstein shocks gave it a really subtle comfortable ride. 2. The airbags with stock springs effectively give it a dual rate spring with the top being the soft stock spring rate, and the bags providing a much firmer variable spring rate under load, and adding pressure to the bags also slightly lengthens them reducing the portion of the spring that's the softer rate. I really dig the airbags. Next mod will be to convert them to individual feed lines, rather than a T.

If there were a slightly firmer spring set with relatively stock travel height I wouldn't mind swapping those in with the bags. But I like the comfort of the stock spring rate around town.

 

[thinkCooper]

Why do we love glamping so much? The new backyard. The quiet. And the food. Eggs from our chickens, and bacon bloody marys on Fremont Peak, above Hollister Hills.

 

[thinkCooper]

More glamping. More truck. Big sur, right on the river, for Valentines Day weekend getaway.

 

[Hepar]

We love the trailer. BTW, it's not a fifth wheel.

Yeah yeah. Let's not get into semantics here! I've just always referred to anything towed behind a 5th wheel.

Thanks for the intel on it. It looks like a really nice and useful one. I'm looking at the 13' Casita or other trailers of similar size. A friend of mine has one and I think it's the perfect size for what I'm looking for.