BUY A BEATER!!!!

You'll be happy you still have comfortable, reliable, decent looking, somewhat practical daily driver. Wheel your beater and if it breaks on the trail over the weekend you still have a good truck to get you to work on Monday morning.

You can take an '84/'85, throw some 32"s on it (with minimal work), put in a rear locker, and go just about anywhere. Since it's a beater, if you bang and scrape your way every now and then, who cares?

I feel you're pain... I too was contemplating SAS on my 88 runner but then a bone stock '84 fell out of the sky for $500 and that made my decision real easy. "Money Pit II" now showing at a theater near me. I will probably throw $2500 at this truck over the next 2 years to get it set up, and yes I could have gotten my SAS done with this money, but hey, now I got 2 toys. My 4Runner is plenty capable, but having a backup ride is a plus. Bottom line I guess is...can you afford a two truck habit?

dentcollector- Nice sig line. Except for the V6/Auto, that just about sums up my junk. You're right about it being difficult affording a two truck habit, but I think it's the way to go.

or you could be an idiot like me, put a bunch o money in your DD, drive it to and from the trails, wheel the sh## out of it, and hope it'll get you home by the time sunday comes around...it makes for an interesting weekend, especially when you have a worried GF ridin shotgun constantly repeating the phrase "remember honey, we have to drive this thing home tommorrow"....

but serioiusly, my vote is for the 2nd truck, it definatly what id do if i could afford it, as im sure you know there is nothin worse than commin off the trail and hearin a funny noise commin from the truck that you have to drive to work on monday morning, plus if you have the beater, chances are you'll really get to push it and test the capability of it since its not your DD, and that fact alone will probly make your trips more fun, even if you cant afford to completely deck your beater out with tons of cool stuff

turner

I looked for a decent 85 to start with (I wanted EFI ).Up here the 85's are hard to find in decent shape so I looked for newer.I ended up with a rough 92 xtra cab that was perfect for what I wanted to use it for.I think a SAS conversion is the way to go because you will have to add most of the same parts to the older ones any way .If you want a straight trail rig that you don't have to drive to far to the trails and the older ones are priced right that also is somthing to consider

Two (2) trucks is the way to go. Nothing is worse than trying to replace a clutch, head gasket, timing chain, ect on some rig that you need to get to work in. When I can afford it I try to have some kind of "pimp" car too. You know, just for stuff like: long road trips, nights out on the town and job interviews. -- Matt

Good gawd, massive replies!! I hadn't expected this. Quite nice!

Ok, well, I'll try to sum up my feelings as individual replies would take way too long.

Setting up my current IFS rig (ext cab remember) would mean that I'm depending on it remaining reliable enough to get me to work & back M-F. Also, I'm not one to drive something that looks like a beater as a daily driver, even if it runs fine. I know many of you don't care about appearance, that's just me. Who care's.

Anyway, with a second truck, ('85 being the best IMHO) it could suffer a terminal illness & it wouldn't affect my daily routine. I could work on it when I felt like it, not that night so I could go to work in the morning.

I feel that wheeling in the PNW ya need a shorter wheelbase, the trails just seem to be chock full of tight corners & switchbacks through dense forest. A few weeks ago I did a bit wheelin' down near Naches & on the easy trails I was cutting it close for turn radius. Btw if any Seattle locals want to do some wheeling I'm game, but I might need some help through the hairer stuff

Anyway, I really appreciate all the feedback, thanks again.

Cheers,
Zach
Redmond, WA