Still pretty new here, so I figured I'd let yall in on my build. I've been working on my rig for about 6 months now so I've got a lot to catch up on so I'll start from the beginning.
I bought a 1990 Toyota Pickup from my buddy who quit working on his 'project' in the middle of a SAS. When I bought it he had most of the parts to finish the SAS but didn't have the motivation because he had other toys taking up his time. The donor axle is from an '85 Yota and obviously the first thing I did was complete the swap. I'm terrible about taking pictures, and the pictures that I did take were lost on my old phone, so the oldest picture I have is right after the swap was complete and I painted the front bumper and grille.
Next step was trying to find a camper. I've always thought that commercial service campers would make a great camper for overlanding due to their storage potential, and I found a pretty used one in San Antonio, talked the guy down to $300, and threw it on my bed. Like I said, it's pretty beat up, but compared to a new A.R.E with the same options, I think I got it for about 1/10th the price and it fits pretty good (camper was made for a 95+ Taco). I got two keys for all the locks and both work, so can't complain about that either!
After I got the camper I started working on additional lighting on the back and making the toolboxes more functional for what I wanted. I got a tool chest from work that we were throwing away that fit perfectly in one of my side boxes with some slight modification. So after work one day I made it fit and organized my sockets/wrenches/other tools.
After this, I decided to finally get rid of the O'Reilly shit racing seat that my buddy installed on the drivers side when he was in high school and though it was cool. I decided on a newer Ford Ranger 60/40 split bench, so I shaved the Ranger to sit lower than it normally would and fabbed up some crossover mounts for the seat. I could only get the drivers side with the center part, so that's all I've done so far. The seat has been in for a while now and it's MUCH more comfortable than that shitty racing seat!
Racing seat mounts
Ranger seat mounts
Ranger seat in the Yota
Also, somewhere in there I built some door panels out of some black aluminum diamond plate and upgraded the sound system with a double din touch screen/10" Kicker sub/amp under the passenger seat.
My buddy, who also sold me this truck, has a 2017 Taco that is stock and came with side steps that he didn't want, so I measured them real quick and he sold them to me for $100. Once again, headed to the fab shop at work and knocked out some crossover brackets (three per side).
That brings it up to date for the most part... The camper and all the tools and stuff that I normally carry has the rear leafs in a somewhat squatted position so this weekend I will be adding a leaf to the 64" Chevy leafs I have back there.
I'm planning a four day camping trip to Padre Island National Seashore with the girlfriend and three dogs, so I'm trying to get it ready for that. Making sure I have proper recovery gear etc. We will probably be camping on the ground this time, but I'm kind of torn between building my own tent that is incorporated with my camper (my design works and would look very similar to the Wildernest how it folds out and you would be able to stand inside the camper) or just buying a roof top tent. I am a good enough fabricator to build it and have the design drawn out for how it would fold out and everything, just need to sit down and add up the weight of the materials that I will be using and see how heavy it's going to be sitting on top and see if it's comparable to one I can buy. There's also the issue of the fact that I've never sewed anything in my life and would have to figure out where to get a heavy duty tent material and then how the hell to put it together and make it waterproof.
Anyways, I'm excited to be on here and look forward to more builds so I can get some more ideas haha!
I bought a 1990 Toyota Pickup from my buddy who quit working on his 'project' in the middle of a SAS. When I bought it he had most of the parts to finish the SAS but didn't have the motivation because he had other toys taking up his time. The donor axle is from an '85 Yota and obviously the first thing I did was complete the swap. I'm terrible about taking pictures, and the pictures that I did take were lost on my old phone, so the oldest picture I have is right after the swap was complete and I painted the front bumper and grille.
Next step was trying to find a camper. I've always thought that commercial service campers would make a great camper for overlanding due to their storage potential, and I found a pretty used one in San Antonio, talked the guy down to $300, and threw it on my bed. Like I said, it's pretty beat up, but compared to a new A.R.E with the same options, I think I got it for about 1/10th the price and it fits pretty good (camper was made for a 95+ Taco). I got two keys for all the locks and both work, so can't complain about that either!
After I got the camper I started working on additional lighting on the back and making the toolboxes more functional for what I wanted. I got a tool chest from work that we were throwing away that fit perfectly in one of my side boxes with some slight modification. So after work one day I made it fit and organized my sockets/wrenches/other tools.
After this, I decided to finally get rid of the O'Reilly shit racing seat that my buddy installed on the drivers side when he was in high school and though it was cool. I decided on a newer Ford Ranger 60/40 split bench, so I shaved the Ranger to sit lower than it normally would and fabbed up some crossover mounts for the seat. I could only get the drivers side with the center part, so that's all I've done so far. The seat has been in for a while now and it's MUCH more comfortable than that shitty racing seat!
Racing seat mounts
Ranger seat mounts
Ranger seat in the Yota
Also, somewhere in there I built some door panels out of some black aluminum diamond plate and upgraded the sound system with a double din touch screen/10" Kicker sub/amp under the passenger seat.
My buddy, who also sold me this truck, has a 2017 Taco that is stock and came with side steps that he didn't want, so I measured them real quick and he sold them to me for $100. Once again, headed to the fab shop at work and knocked out some crossover brackets (three per side).
That brings it up to date for the most part... The camper and all the tools and stuff that I normally carry has the rear leafs in a somewhat squatted position so this weekend I will be adding a leaf to the 64" Chevy leafs I have back there.
I'm planning a four day camping trip to Padre Island National Seashore with the girlfriend and three dogs, so I'm trying to get it ready for that. Making sure I have proper recovery gear etc. We will probably be camping on the ground this time, but I'm kind of torn between building my own tent that is incorporated with my camper (my design works and would look very similar to the Wildernest how it folds out and you would be able to stand inside the camper) or just buying a roof top tent. I am a good enough fabricator to build it and have the design drawn out for how it would fold out and everything, just need to sit down and add up the weight of the materials that I will be using and see how heavy it's going to be sitting on top and see if it's comparable to one I can buy. There's also the issue of the fact that I've never sewed anything in my life and would have to figure out where to get a heavy duty tent material and then how the hell to put it together and make it waterproof.
Anyways, I'm excited to be on here and look forward to more builds so I can get some more ideas haha!
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