That's exactly the stuff I want to do. It's not that I don't enjoy the challenge of a hard trail but I'm just not feeling the whole live-to-wrench-on-my-truck thing these days. I like to explore.
Plus, it seems when a truck becomes a hard core cralwer it's lifespan gets rather short and I'd like this one to stick around a good long while.
Frank
I think you might enjoy
Expedition Portal and
their message board if you haven't already seen it. Not to lure you away from here, as I still spend the majority of my time here, but those guys are super nice, just like here and whole site is just dedicated to 4x4 expedition travel, 4x4 campers, remote travel, etc. Really cool stuff. The Toyota sections are more geared towards Land Cruisers and Tacomas, since that seems to be what most of those guys are using, but still have some older Toy stuff.
I know you know you're way around Toyotas, but for whatever it's worth (and to allow me to day dream about building a new rig <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />) this is probably how I would set it up, for whatever it's worth.
Narrow 33s, with minimal to no lift. Maybe a balljoint spacer up front and some shackles in the rear. I hear Land Cruiser 80 springs will fit and give some lift in a coil spring 4runner, so I'd give that some thought. You'll probably need more than 1" of lift to compensate for the weight of spares, tools and camping gear in the back.
I would go with 5.29s with a rear only locker. You could get away with your stock 4.88s for a while if money is an issue, but at some point, 5.29s would be a nice addition. I say rear locker only, because front lockers are expensive, especially since I would never put anything but ARB up front. I like to use 4WD on the fireroads and an autolocker up front just makes that very unpleasent from my experience. However, I doubt I'd use the front ARB much, which is why I'd be inclined to just leave the front open.
For the rear, an ARB would be awesome, but a cheap V-6 Lockrite would do just fine too. (I'm not sure what would actually fit your factory 4.88 diff).
On an IFS rig with minimal lift, I think a Budbuilt crossmember and skidplate would go a long way, since that extra 1-2" of clearance would really help. Not sure how to address the gas tank issue, though.
That's really all I would do in the tire, suspension axle department. Maybe beef up the idler arm just to be safe.
For external armor and winches, I would probably go with an ARB bullbar and a Warn winch up front and some off road lights. A narrow 33x9.5 spare will fit under the truck and give you more clearance than a stock 31x10.5 tire and no need for a rear tire carrier that impeeds your vision.
A rig set up like that will go just about anywhere, yet be very reliable and comfortable on the highway and still turn heads. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />
For the engine, I'd leave it stock, but go duel batteries, and add a higher output alternator. Nothing crazy, just about 100-150 amps.
And then you could turn to setting up the interior, where Engel refrigerator is a must have...at least for me. I personally rarely need to carry 4 people, but a 3rd seat is definately handy. I would probably pull out the rear bench, and replace it with a single seat, then utilize the extra room for storage box and/or refrigerator. Stuff that you might want to access from the front seats. That leaves a ton of room in the back for hauling the rest of the gear.
Another idea if you didn't need to carry more than just one passenger is to yank the rear seat out all together and build a box that was flush with the rear bed which would give you storage, but allow a roughly 6 foot long bed to sleep in and store gear.
Ah yes....building something new just sounds like so much fun. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />
