Thinkcooper's 2000 Sport 5 speed shenanigans built thread

[thinkCooper]

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

How do you like driving your 2001 with that TRD turbocharger? ;-)

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.

The Casita is a cute little rig. Certainly towable behind any 4runner with a 6. In that same class are the T@b trailers, but they are becoming really tough to find these days.

The beauty of towing a trailer to camp is that you can set-up your site, layout the whole spread, then uncouple the truck and go exploring on day trips without taking your camp apart again. Good luck - and if you need any input on trailering, feel free to message me here.

 

[thinkCooper]

We've primarily used the truck for road trips. Mrs. Thinkcooper and I are both cyclists (road and dirt) and the truck has brought on some awesome adventures. Here's tge roof mounted road bikes prepping for a 100 mile century ride in Paso Robles through wine country.

 

[Hepar]

How do you like driving your 2001 with that TRD turbocharger? ;-)

Ha! Touché.

The beauty of towing a trailer to camp is that you can set-up your site, layout the whole spread, then uncouple the truck and go exploring on day trips without taking your camp apart again. Good luck - and if you need any input on trailering, feel free to message me here.

Exactly why I'm looking at one. When I head to the coast for multiple days, you want to be able to set up a base camp while still being able to be mobile.

 

[thinkCooper]

Ha! Touché.




Exactly why I'm looking at one. When I head to the coast for multiple days, you want to be able to set up a base camp while still being able to be mobile.

Thanks for smiling with me on the Supercharger quip.

Base camp, and day trips - That's it exactly. I used to hunt back in the day, and if I'd had a trailer like ours, that would've opened up huge possibilities.

 

[thinkCooper]

I mentioned having a few unique vehicles over the past few years. Here's one I sadly needed to let go of. Owned for a dozen+ years... I had the pleasure of restoring this '78 FJ40. Shot the color, did all the mechanicals. It was originally a farmers truck in SW Utah, when I lived out there. Bought it, used it for wheeling and crawling, then moved to California, where every decent trail or dirt road was locked behind a chain. OME suspension and lockers, Con-ferr stuff, original straight six that ran like a champ. Miss this guy.

 

[thinkCooper]

Re: Unique vehicles. So this 4WD vehicle in the collection isn't as unusual as it is small. 1/10 the scale, 1/10th the cost (maybe 1/20th the cost) of a full scale crawler. It's an R1 Gmade RC with four wheel steering and DIG rear lock axle for messing around in the yard, at the beach, on camping trips.

Testing the 4WS and DIG


This video was shot with a Samsung 360 camera mounted on the truck and can be viewed in full 360 via a browser or device that supports 360, or spun manually in most other browsers.

 

[Charlene]

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.

Have you noticed any difference in MPG having the airlifts for pulling the camper? Also do you have a supercharger?

 

[thinkCooper]

Have you noticed any difference in MPG having the airlifts for pulling the camper? Also do you have a supercharger?

No supercharger or power mods, just the stock 3.4 V6. We see about 13mpg when towing the rPod. We've towed across the Sierras several times, it climbs fine, and I'm super stoked to have the Tundra front rotor/calipers to modulate our speed on the long descents. We also have e-brakes on the rPod and use a Prodigy trailer controller to use the trailer's brakes to help slow us down.

Pretty sure the only impact the Air Lift airbags have is spring firmness with the rPod tongue weight on the tow hitch.

 

[thinkCooper]

Enough with Unique Vehicles for now. Back to the Gen 3 4runner.

IMHO, the singlemost critical upgrade for driveability? Swapping in a Pioneer AVIC-5200NEX CarPlay headunit, Kicker CS speakers in all four doors and the front A pillar, a Kicker amp and Kicker Hideaway underseat sub. It took this old man a few days to get it all in with wiring for GPS, a sunvisor microphone, USB cable for my iPhone, power for the sub and amp with remote on/off from the headunit, and two Camera jacks (one for backup to help with connecting to the trailer, and a second camera line for one on the back of the trailer).

Audio is great with the new speakers, hands free calling via CarPlay is stellar, and that backup camera... solo hookups to the trailer hitch are going to save my marriage.

P.S. Working Clock! *Knocks on wood*
P.S.S. Need to listen to those VMs and clear those old texts

 

[thinkCooper]

Quick 2021 update - I think we're finally at the stage where we want to sell this 4Runner. 135K miles. Rust free... Details on page 1 about the vehicle specs.

 

[Xjazzwreck11]

Beautiful rig, DM sent!