22 Years With My 2002 SR5 Regular Cab

My 2002 became my dedicated work truck soon after I bought it in 2003 when it had 17,000 miles.



I've always had a 2nd vehicle to drive so I could easily separate tax deductible business mileage from everything else. The 2nd vehicle(s) also helped keep total mileage low... it should hit 200,000 miles this year.

Mods include: Anytime fog lights, Amber LED fog lights, LED headlight bulbs in OEM housings, a Toyota 6-disc changer / cassette player with factory amp, Wet Okole seat covers, 2005 taillights & alloys, JBA short tube headers, TRD off road front coil springs, TRD/Kazuma LSD, a Hellwig/TRD rear sway bar, over the rail Line-X ...



The place I lived at for a full decade had an exposed concrete parking pad that received no shade, the summer heat coming off the concrete baked most of the rubber suspension and drive live components making them dry and brittle.

All it took for these rubber parts to fail about 3 years ago was an accident avoidance emergency stop with all four wheels temporarily locked up as I slid diagonally across a bumpy section of roadway leaving the Prius that turned in front of me at the last second in a cloud of tire smoke unscathed. I was on a service call more than an hour from home at the time... I safely made my way home on 4 flat spotted tires and with a lot of new vibrations and wobbles.

Repairs associated with that event: 4 new tires, 4 new shocks, upper and lower control arms with ball joints, steering rack bushings, drive shaft assembly, sway bar end link bushings and re-centering the rear sway bar because it had shifted to one side.

The repairs restored that Cadillac ride that I looked forward to after a hard days work.



I will be updating and adding to the post over time...

 

I don't have production numbers, but I know that Toyota did not make many 4.7L 4WD regular cab long bed Tundra in 2002. My SR5 has the factory towing package, but it does not have ABS.

 

I have had three different caps on the bed of my truck, the Leer high top lasted 16 years before the fiberglass began to crack.



Leer replaced the cap with a really nice new cab height cap under warranty because they no longer make the high top for these trucks...



the ceiling on this new cap was too low for the work I do so I ordered a custom A.R.E. cap and ended up selling the new Leer for cheap. The huge aluminum A.R.E. high wedge DCU Truck Hero cap I have on the truck now is awesome, I wish I had it from day one.

 

Maintenance:

Valve cover gaskets, spark plug tube seals, spark plugs, PCV valve & grommet changed out at 187,000 miles... this is the first time the valve covers have been off the engine, and the non ventilated side looks pristine with no staining at all. Oil had been dripping on the passenger side header for more than a year...



A few months and 5,000 miles after the vale cover, pcv valve, and spark plug service pictured above was completed I performed the timing belt service... The original radiator was replaced in 2018.



I changed the oil and filter during the timing belt service, and I am running synthetic oil for the very first time.



I also replace vacuum lines while I was at it, two of them have been discontinued.