Minty Fresh 2000' 4x4 Tundy

2000 Toyota Tundra Limited Access Cab 4x4 with 161,xxx Miles. Purchased for 7.2k. I basically made money buying this truck after I first sold my 2010 RAV4 to get a truck, got an 02' Tacoma, bought the Tundra after I wasn't happy with the taco, and sold it for a $1250 profit.

Truck was a one owner who took truly incredible care of the vehicle and was hisdaily driver to and from work. Aftermarket TRD Dual Cat Exhaust. K&N Cold Air Intake. Aftermarket Kenwood Excelon Head Unit w/ Polk Audio Sound System, JL Amp.

It has been in Florida its entire life aside from a couple years in New Hampshire where it was mainly kept in a garage. Owner bought a RAV4 specifically so he didn't have to drive the Tundra around on salt roads. Frame condition is a testament to that truth. Garage kept. Original clear coat and paint maintained by clay bar and polish. Weekly cleanings and I mean look at the engine bay....




Absolutely beautiful truck and I'm blessed to be the new owner of it. My plan is to keep up with the maintenance and cleanliness like the previous owner has since this truck meant a lot to him. Eventually going to do some boat towing and national parks trips in this baby, so I'll be outfitting it to take on the challenge as such (New tires and rims, lift and suspension, etc.)

Transmission and Rear Differential were replaced on 11/15/18 and 11/30/18. Dealership has never seen this problem before, since they usually don't fail. Really weird fluke on Toyota's behalf.

One of the maintenance quirks that came with the truck is the sway bar connection on the left side has broken off. Tire is turned a bit in park in the picture. See here:


Previous owner was kind enough to purchase the parts and help me with the install! We live pretty close to each other, so I think I made a new friend when purchasing this truck

----------------------------------------------------ORIGINAL POST ABOVE/UPDATES BELOW-----------------------------------------------------------​

Threads I've Made if you want to follow along with progress:
If you want to know how I got my hands on this truck here's the Link to the Entire Saga

• Getting to Level on Bilstein 6112s for Access Cabs
• Picking the Right Tire for the Rims
• No Sound from Speaker after Solder Job
• Unknown Plastic Ticking Noise at Low Idle
• Timing Belt and Water Pump is the Best Job
• Horribly Seized Bolts on Fan Clutch
• No Fluid out of Brake Bleeders and No Brake Power

Current Plans for Upgrades/Mods:

• Sell off any budget influencers to increase margins (Old chrome rims/wheels and Jeep rims from BFG KO2's FB Marketplace snag)
• Bigger Brake Upgrade
  
• Airbags and ARB Compressor or SumoSprings
• Diff Breather Mod
• New head unit with Apple CarPlay
• Armor (Front & Rear Bumper, Skid Plate?)
• 700lb Springs before Front Bumper Install
• Use my engineering brain and do something custom whether through programming or making hardware.
• Minimal sound deadening to remove road noise. Nothing too crazy.

Current Status of How the Build is Going (Tracked in Notion):
Notion link HERE to see updates in real-time or see below:

 

Alright so update from when I first got the tundy! I'm going to add some pictures to this post later since I'm wiped from today and can't be bothered to go into my garage and snap pics right now.

I went ahead and digitized all of the previous maintenance records so I can look back on them easier whenever I'm doing truck work and don't want to go back and forth from the glovebox. Real first world problem I know...

So far most of the fluids have been switched out of the car besides the power steering, coolant, and brake fluid. Going to wait on the coolant until I do the timing belt and water pump next weekend before I flush it. I did a drain and refill of the transmission using Valvoline Max Life and I actually noticed a difference in shifting performance into the higher gears, so super happy about that. Front diff fluid was especially nasty, so I'm questioning how many times it's been replaced in its lifetime. Rear diff was also nasty, real shiny, so I think I did the right thing swapping out the fluids when I did.

Figured out the trick to getting the back driver's side spark plug out when doing my spark plugs. While doing this, one of the solenoid hose's for the exhaust system cracked. Nothing a little electric tape couldn't fix! (Adding a pic for this soon)

Also come to find out there isn't a power steering leak, but actually a transmission fluid leak. This is mildly concerning because the leak is super small, so let me know what I can do about there. Here is a picture of the leak point (Not yet):

I just did the lower ball joints today and holy shit it was a nightmare. They've never been replaced before, so I don't know why I walked in the garage thinking it was going to take 2 hours to do, especially since it was my first big-ish maintenance project aside from doing the valve cover gasket on my Tacoma. In reality it took a whole afternoon where the first ball joint gave me all of the problems and took me maybe 4-5 hours. Tires were rusted onto the hub so I hard to horse kick them off from under the truck, Rusted carder pin, components covered in oil from a previous valve gasket cover leak, seized bolts & castle nuts... You get the picture. Second one took me probably an hour or two to get off, mainly because I knew what I was doing this time and the parts were way less rusty or covered in oil. The power of knowledge! (Pictures of the new LBJs here)

Anyways, I unfortunately ran into another problem while doing the LBJ's, and that's that the outer tire rods are completely screwed. Rubber covering the bearing was rotting away and wiggling inside the housing for both of them. And to top it all off, I gave the threads a couple swings at the hammer when trying to knock the LBJ's loose, so there is no way the castle nuts are getting screwed back on there! Silly me! I just screwed them on best I could for now so I can fully close the garage.

(Pictures of my fucked up outer tire rods here)

That being said, what I learned is to always buy or get a friend to give you the friggin specialty tool even if its a little extra, because it would've saved me the headache of having to spend all day doing this job and still save my tire rods to at least drive to the Advanced Auto to get replacements. Luckily I haven't sold the Tacoma yet so that's what I'll be driving to work on Monday. It should be a pretty quick fix though and I'll get it done after work Monday.

Oh well, I lived and learned today so next time I'll be better! lol.

 

I had a hell of a time with the outer tie rods when I did mine too. My truck has zero rust and I had the tools, the tie rod would just not separate from the ball joint. I had a 4lb sledge hammer and a bj tool and it would not come undone. I had to beat down on the tie rod stud too luckily I just messed up the nut and not the threads but I’m assuming I’ll be replacing tie rods fairly soon. You’re not alone haha!

 

Late to the party on this, but if you need a pair of low-mile (77k) OEM swaybar links gimme a holler. I saved mine when I updated my suspension.

 

Might just! I think the previous owner is providing me with those parts, just waiting to hear back from him about it.

Currently working on the timing belt right now since the truck isn’t driveable due to the outer tire rods which come in on Thursday. I expect to get the timing belt done sometime during the end this weekend since I’m doing it slowly after work and carefully documenting what I take off and do as I go.

 

Well, if you don't, that's cool too, I'll just save 'em for the next person who may need them Finally found a new home for my OEM UCA. Hate tossing perfectly good parts.

 

Alright so here's a much needed update for the truck. A lotta work has been done and a lot more is about to be done in the upcoming weeks!

I went ahead and digitized all of the records I've done to the truck through Notion, previous records from 2014 and up, along with all of the stuff I've done to the truck so far. I really like their database organization system and all the features of it, so I updated the main post to have a link for realtime updates and I'll be updating the pictures I took periodically when I get the chance/think about it.

Full fluid change is done aside from wrapping up the transmission drain and refill, which I'll do a swap every 2k miles, power steering, and brake fluid (Fluids I used + whatever I needed to clean out of the garage):


I replaced the timing belt and water pump, along with the inner and outer tie rods. I really didn't want to replace the tie rods, but the LBJ's were so stuck on the outers I had to bash them and fucked up the outer threading. Then after trying to replace the outers, found out they were seized on there. Blowtorch did nothing and I tried at it for 2 hours on both, I even jacked the tie rod with no luck, so I just chopped them off with a Dremel and put on Sankei 555 inners and oem outers. Details of my mental breakdown doing the timing belt & water pump job, along with a fat coolant leak after install HERE

LED Swapped all interior lights along with HVAC and dash lights. Looks sooooo much cleaner. I originally wanted to do a more orange/halogen look with orange LEDs, but I don't know how that would look. I'll probably do it sometime later since LEDs are cheap:





Headlight mini projector retrofit. Bought new housings and it makes the truck look 10x younger. I absolutely love the look and the cutoff line is clean. In the future, I might replace the fog lights with LED ones, but this is great for now!:



New sway bar links have been installed. Courtesy of @EdMal01 for purchasing the parts!:



No picture for these, but the driver's side window regulator assembly has been replaced and it works great now! No delay or stoppage. Got the spray nozzles for the FJ Cruiser which are SO much better than the originals, and I replaced a door trim for the driver's side that I smashed when I was installing the window regulator. Little things to just make the truck even better!

Right now, I have a problem with the right side of the truck on the passenger side is making a loud groaning noise which I haven't been able to diagnose yet, but I think it might be my brake pads sticking or just a bad alignment since I haven't gone to the mechanic to get it done yet after I installed the inner and outer tie rods.

I'm pretty much done with phase 1 of my build, which is to just rebuild it for safe driving conditions, so onward to phase 2, which is to put some meatier tires and rims on, along with some sort of lift and make it more overland-y.

Just recently purchased some practically brand new 285/70/17r KO2's for a sweet deal at hopefully $140-$150 a tire when all is said and done. Read up on that HERE if you'd like (first five bottom up in the stack):


Since there are jeep rims on the ko2's right now, I'm getting them replaced with SCS F5 Matte Black 17inch Rims, -10mm offset @ around a 4.3"-4.5" backspacing. Those are coming in the next couple of weeks:


Right now I have a 2" leveling spacer I'm waiting to put in, but my mom is hinting on getting me some suspension components for my birthday that's coming up, which would be insane, so I might wait on installing it until after my birthday. It's either that or some other truck stuff.

But so far so good! Everything is moving along smoothly and the truck is going to have a HUGE transformation in the next couple of weeks. Just have to figure out what that sound is, and hopefully an alignment solves the issue, but I'm going to let the mechanic know the problem so they can check it out. Since I'm a poor ass college student, this whole transformation build would never be possible if I wasn't working, along with also selling my Tacoma. All the cards and being played right to where I've only put about $3k of my own money into the truck, which was the original budget I set, but the overall costs would be closer to $4.5k. The Tacoma sale and the Jeep rims will help a lot in keeping me closer to my original budget for the build.

I've updated the first post too if you want to read up on future plans and other things, but that's it for now!

 

When all is said in done with the new tires too, I will most likely be selling the Weld Forged Wheels if anyone is interested in those. Chrome is chipped in a lot of places and one tire has a beak leak, so I'll be marking them down lower, but they're still clean as can be and that stuff can be repaired. They're sweet looking, just not my style!

 

Agreed

 

Have some mint, Because this thing is CLEAN! SCS wheels and Kbro2's is going to look awesome!

 

I've somehow missed this thread until now, truck looks great and you got it at a great price.

I'd avoid that leveling spacer if you can help it, they're known to hurt ride quality.

Does the previous owner have the original intake? The K&N is known to be more of a hot air intake and the filter oil can cause issues. It can be hard to find the original setup but if the last owner still has it that'd be great.

 

Never ended up getting that suspension kit, so looks like I’ll be putting in the spacers or just buying the kit myself if budget allows it, I just gotta see how that looks on the pockets Im doing the spacer lift to accommodate for the tires and make it easier in the long run to do fitment for some front end stuff. Should be an easy swap over once I get a 2” lift kit with shocks,struts and springs.

Yeah I’ve read up on the K&N and how it doesn’t really help much. Probably decreases performance overall. I might find a part car and just put the intake in. Hopefully I can find a particularly clean one to match the engine bay

 

OEM box pulls cold air from the fender well. K&N hot air intake pulls hot air from the engine bay. It sure looks cool, but the reality is, you may get some low end throttle response and a couple torque but you’re adding maintenance via cleaning the MAF and TB at every oil change thanks to the oiled filter plus less particulate filtering. Be careful about cleaning/re-oiling the filter, let it sit out to distribute oil before reinstall. You can achieve similar results by modding the stock air box and intake tube. Wish someone sold an updated intake tube…

 

I mean I don’t really mind the extra maintenance since it isn’t super tedious, but is there any way I can get cold air using the K&N filter? Reason being costs. I plan on getting the tires and alignment done soon, along with some bigger brakes. If not, I’ll just have to live with it for now!

 

You know the L-shaped baffle around the filter? You'd essentially need to seal that off fully, so the only source of air is the factory hole into the fender. Now, I dunno how easy it would be to accomplish that, sealing against the hood completely would be hte hardest part.

 

Im bored and know how to use 3D modeling software, so I might make it a project just to do the housing so I can keep vroom vroom noise and maintain performance. I’ll have to look into it some more but I’ll update on maybe a different post if I get around to carrying out that project!

 

Just pulled the trigger on a front suspension upgrade! Bilstein 6112's w/ 650lb springs from FirstGenOffroad.com.


I got some news that I'll be working part time for the company I'm currently interning at when I go back to school, so I decided to get myself a lil present and return the pucks back to Amazon and save $38. I plan on looking for a used set of 5100 shocks on FB + SumoSprings to upgrade the rear suspension, but I'll probably wait a bit since I also plan on doing the big brake upgrade first since I know braking power will get worse once the 285's are mounted on, and I already dislike the current performance of it now.

I might also pick up some extended sway bar links too, but I want to lift the truck just enough to completely remove rub. I'll pick them up if I see that it becomes a problem since I just threw the new ones provided by the previous owner on.

I'll make sure to take some pictures once I start the work. Super excited!

 

I did not think I'd be doing this today but the deal was WAY too good to pass up...

ARE Camper Shell off a 2005 DC Tundra. $100.



By the grace of God I am getting blessed with the parts for this project and I am so thankful. My buddy said he'd help me make a grommet for the gap between the cab and the shell to make it look a little cleaner. I'm gonna wash it down and get the spider webs cleaned out of it.

So hyped, I cannot wait to put the wheels on this baby.

 

We’re in Business


Took me about 4 hours to install in total but everything went smooth!

I need to get under the car again to readjust the extended sway bar links since my garage isn’t fully level, but so far so good!

Right now the truck is sitting about 1 inch higher than the rear. Gonna wait a couple weeks and maybe take it down some bumpy roads so the springs settle down faster. If it stays at a 1 inch squat, I’ll just get an icon add a leaf to level out the rear with the front if I still have a slight squat by then. Still need some rear shocks too which will either be 5100’s or 5160’s.

Tires are the last piece of the puzzle! Coming soon!

 

Alright! Currently getting bombarded by Milton at the moment waiting for my power to go out, so I thought I'd update ya'll on the many things I've done to the truck!

Here's she looks as she stands with the new SCS F5 Rims w/ 285/70/17r wheels on her. Measures about a 4.3' backspacing with the -10mm offset:



I spray painted the hubs since the wheel is a hub-centric design and it turned out good! I get the smallest bit of rub on the left side frame at full crank and a small bit in reverse. Nothing bad. I had to remove the mudflaps as all of us do with 285's and cut back some of the firewall plastic above where the mudflaps sat as well. I should've really avoided cutting by heat gunning it, but I was in a pinch and wasn't thinking. It doesn't really affect anything though!

When I was bleeding my brakes the other day my master cylinder failed, and that was a whole fiasco that resulted in me installing the T100 MC and Brake Booster. It was a relatively straight forward process you can read up on here:


I ended up spending a little more than I wanted to on the brake booster ($330) and wanted to opt in for an EBay option, but I thought fuck it, I'll just buy the reman from NAPA and not have to deal with the worry of a part going bad on a roadtrip. Gives me the peace of mind. I also spray painted the booster and mc with rust-protectant spray paint since the brake fluid can get nasty. One of my buddies who also has a Tundra is interested in doing the job now too and is going to buy the EBay brake booster off of me.

I installed Bilstein 5100s in the rear since the previous shock in there were the originals and absolutely DEAD (I could compress them fully like playing with play doe and they didn't rebound back):



Truck rides a lot better in the rear!

I also went to the junkyard with one of my buddies who has a Tundra looking for a new bed for him, and picked up an OEM air intake. A lot of people recommended to me to swap out the K&N Cold Air Intake I had in with an OEM one, so I did!:



Not nearly as clean as the engine bay, but I'm going to probably take a butane torch to it to get it back to its black, unaged color.

Also engine bay is still clean, but I noticed I have a coolant leak somewhere. Nothing detrimental since the picture is maybe after 3000 miles of driving with the new timing belt + water pump change, but I want to find the leak and fix it so the engine bay stays as clean as possible!

I'm eventually going to install the K&N back into the truck once I engineer an air box that can seal up the K&N Filter while also pulling air from the fender well. More on that later, but that job probably won't happen for some time until maybe Thanksgiving Break or Winter Break when college brakes out.



I also just recently bought a spare tire that came in the mail a couple of days ago. I've had the tire on a Jeep rim since I bought all five BFG KO2's on Marketplace and just need to swap it:


I'm not gonna lie, the chrome is starting to grow on me some now that the wheels are balancing out the chrome/white/black color scheme of the truck, but I feel like the truck will look a lot better and a lot meaner without any chrome. I'd like to get a low profile front steel bumper and rear bumper. I might fab it myself since I have a couple of buddies interested in taking on the project too, but this is what I had in mind if I went and purchased one:

Front Bumper:
https://addictedoffroad.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4_7&products_id=28

Brute Force Fab's Low Profile Hybrid Option (I like this one way more):


Rear Bumper:
https://www.coastaloffroad.com/product-page/1st-gen-tundra-high-clearance-rear-bumper-kit/

So this is my current list of big upgrades I'll be doing over a long while unless start pulling money out of thin air:

1. Big Brake upgrade, Either to 13WL or the GX460 Upgrade since I plan on getting armor, just not sure how much yet.
2. SumoSprings or FB Marketplace Airbag Suspension in the rear (Probably an air compressor too), since I know I will be getting a rear bumper and need the weight to support it.
3. Low profile rock sliders. I want them to not really get in the way and allow for a step while also serving a functional purpose on the trail. Fab my own or buy.
4. Rear steel bumper. Buy it or fab it myself.
5. 700lb front springs to support the front bumper.
6. Front steel bumper either bought or fab myself.
7. Lights.
8. Possibly a skid plate depending on my road trip plans.

After I finish this list, there isn't much to do. I understand that it's endless, but I don't want to be building this truck out forever, just keeping her pretty. My goal is to get it ready by the time I graduate Spring 2026 and by then, I'll probably get my camping supplies and road trip. I also want to stay under 10k with the upgrades, since I basically got paid to buy the truck after first buying an 02' Tacoma, buying this 00' Tundra, and the selling the Tacoma for a profit, so all of the money I've put into the truck is essentially the amount I paid for it.

I plan to take 6 months off after I graduate and travel the US and just live life. A lot of stuff has been working out for me this past year with a job lining up and a bunch of other work opportunities for my future opening up with it, and I'm really thankful to be in the opportunity to build this thing into a cool rig!