4500 Mile Trip Planning for a 1st Gen

Your reasoning is obvious and not in any way in question,the method just seems silly to me when you can just lock the stupid shell window by ordering a $10 key? But enough of that it is not my problem.

Like I said earlier buy something to cover the windows from the inside so no one can shop from the outside in your bed.
I carry a truck full of tools as thats why I am on the road usually anyway and I need the tools!
So far I have been lucky and never been a target and I have stayed in some pretty terrible areas too.
But Out of Sight,Out of Mind as they say has worked for me so far.

I have made literally 100- 2 day trips in my 1st gen regular cab and many longer drives and the seats are comfy as hell and mine has the bench and it is just sort of like sitting on a couch and is not degraded at all it feels like to me and I am 0ld enough to feel them if they are bad!

My 2015 though has the most uncomfortable seats in any car I have ever owned maybe and is just a pain in the ass in every way after long drives but still just walking around for a minute while pumping gas and I am back in it for a few hours and I am grateful that I do not have a larger tank!

There is a lot to be said for so much driving time too but you are young and I am sure that every minute spent on this trip will be memorable whether driving or not.......For better or Worse too!

Sounds like fun to me!

 

My mom claimed the bench seat in my 05 RC taco was the best seat ever, my 06 DC seats are 10x more comfortable than the 2010 4runner we have.

 

I know you're a topper man and maybe I'm overthinking it. I guess in my head it would be a really quick and hard twist of that handle on the topper and they'd be in. I've never really ran a topper. Maybe that latch that's on it is great, I'll just have to see. I'm planning to put it on in mid March or so that way I can figure out the small details and figure out if the thing leaks or not. Gotta get all these repairs done with the truck in the garage before the cap goes on. Think for now I'll just try and figure out the best way to put blinds in it and wait till I put it on to figure out if I need to go further.

Even if it turns bad I know I'll always remember the trip. Even if my girlfriend hates me if something happens lol. Only time will tell.

 

I have no clue why you think that the lock on the shell is a simple twist and grab sort of thing?

There are a lot of shells on the road and they all use the same mechanisms for the locking and there are for sure a lot of broken ones that are clear to see as I drive around too but the ones that work are not a burglary waiting to happen whether you think they are somehow or not?

I will even suggest that relying on the tailgate lock seems pretty naive to me as I know I can just rip that one out by hand or with little effort by accident because I have a few times but Ive never had an issue with the cam locks on a shell and I have owned a lot of them.

I would go out to the thing this morning and read the number on the lock and then call a place that sells them and using "Mouth Words" talking on the phone talk about getting keys or replacing the cylinder and getting them right away so you dont have to dick around with this as an afterthought at the last minute.

Once on the truck and clamped down try the latch and make sure that the pins on each side actually do overlap the shell inside to latch the window closed securely and if not make the simple adjustments to fix that and see for yourself.
These use pretty tough steel for those rods and like others have said the glass is the weak point not the locks usually.

I usually also tint the glass if for no other reason that tint will also make the glass a lot tougher to just break out to get inside the shell.

 

I got a good chuckle out of this.

@NickB_01TRD if you're worred about a smash-and-grab, another thing you could potentially do is replace the glass window with an aluminum one or whatever. I've seen a few out there.

 

Damn. Ran out of whiz, bro.

 

don't overthink the topper. Buy a replacement lock and handle on Amazon and call it a day. cost you $20 and get you exactly what you want. anyone who wants to get into the topper can just smash the window anyway.

 

@ezdog
Alright alright I get it. Factory installed topper lock is top notch stuff. I'll get a key figured out for it. Windows appear to be tinted already as well.

 

Wireless Baby monitor motion cam that talks to your phone.

 

Not really what I said either but they do get the job done and are not just something you walk up to and twist open at all.

 

Alright so an update on my topper situation. The topper has been off the truck for so long (either from me or PO) that sides down by the bottom of the lift glass are bowed out to the sides therefore not allowing the lock to latch properly. I either need to pull the sides back in towards each other somehow or find a way to make the rods longer. Any ideas would be appreciated and I didn't have the time today to snap pics but I'll try to tomorrow.
Generic pic for reference with arrows showing where my issue is.


My alternate plan of making the tailgate the primary lock won't work too well either because the lip on the lift glass sticks down too far on the gate to get it to sit behind it.

 

Flip her on her back and squeeze her legs together.

But for real, if you have time, turn it on its side and run a ratchet strap around the shell to shrink the long end of the trapezoid. Sit it in the sun and hope for the best. Although, fatigue might have taken its toll on that old fiberglass.

 

Really trying to keep from taking it off now that it's on unless absolutely necessary. Might be able to still wrap a strap around the whole thing and pull those sides in with it on the truck. Good idea.

 

Me and my newly-wed jumped in a rental and drove from Texas to the northern tip of Cali, down the coastal highway and back to Tejas in a week and a half. With stops at the Grand Canyon, Vegas, and all that good ol' shit that you need to see when you head out west.

My advice, dead stop without any hesitation... Slow down and take way, way more pictures.

I soccer momed the shit out of my trip and was always under constant pressure to get to the next hotel/airbnb/reservation. Don't do this. This is a trip that you will forever remember and you're gonna want the least amount of stress possible. Plan the big things of course, but try to set as few deadlines as you can. Shes gonna have to pee, like, a lot. You're gonna get stuck in traffic. Road construction is a thing.

Point is, take your time. Forget about the miles. Take a few extra days off work if you need to, but if you're gonna do this, make it count and make it memorable. You're always going to look back at it and laugh so why not stop and take a bunch of goofy, bad ass pics along the way.

 

I just got a look at your proposed route. If you have the time, I'd highly recommend going north on 89, out of AZ, and head west to visit Zion and Bryce Canyon, then continue north on 89 until it meets 70 and continue your trip from there. Hiking up into Zion and appreciating the enormity of the canyon walls was a very close second to the immensity of the Grand Canyon. I still have a hard time comprehending the scale of both. Truly incredible.

 

Yeah remembering to take life slow and enjoy it so you don't miss it is something I think about daily. Gonna try our best to stop and see everything we can. Just gotta do what we can with the time we have available.

I'll keep that in mind if we have the time.
Thanks!

 

If you think they're solid enough to do it, I'd consider flipping it over in the gras, getting a ratchet strap, lock onto the hoops at the bottom corners, and pull them together. Then put it on the truck, and clamp it into place. The clamps holding it in place will do the rest.

If there's similar hooks or latch points toward the middle, I'd get a tape measure, get the middle to the same width as the part up against the cab, then go to the back window.

Just keep in mind, you're dealing with fiberglass, so you'll want to work slowly, carefully, and don't go overboard or you can crack it. Proceed at your own risk, use your best judgment, I'm not responsible if you dick something up.

 

Gonna try and do what I can with it on the truck later on today. Pulling it together and then clamping it may do some good. I'll give that a shot.
May have to find some way to keep in strapped together on the trip if nothing else works out. I'll do what I have to.

 

I mean, one other option could be, if there's any space for a 2x4 to fit into a groove along the base of the shell and stay in place, you could put one on each side and pull them together But then they'll be in the way of clamping it down once on the truck.

 

Thought for sure I updated this thread more recently but I guess not. Put the topper on a while ago and ended up putting a ratchet strap around it while it was on the truck and pulling the sides together in order to get it to latch right. Used the topper clamps and a c-clamp on each side as well just to be safe and its staying perfectly in position.

Was working great till the rivets that hold the bottom metal part to the glass gave out. Ended up running bolts all the way through it for strength and since I don't have a rivet gun. (I need to take more pics)

Came to this thread to let everyone know that we are leaving Friday morning and hoping all goes to plan of course. Truck is almost loaded up all the way and I'm noticing it's squatting more than I thought it might. May need to turn the headlights down a little bit. Just need to stick a long phillips screwdriver in and turn the adjuster as far as I can tell.

I hope some of y'all will be on the lookout on the forums for me begging for help if shit hits the fan. I'm hoping with as many new parts are on the truck that it's no issue.

 

The Black Hills of South Dakota are beautiful. There’s so much more to see than just Mount Rushmore. You could spend your entire trip there and not see everything.

 

Truck is in the garage almost loaded up all the way.

Forgot to mention as well that after leveling the front of the truck the topper now clears the garage door by a couple inches. Topper will probably be staying on for good now.
Would show where the rivets broke if the picture would ever upload from work.

 

Something about no gas door is unsettling to me. Like walking out of the house with no pants on.

 

I've got one. Waiting for girlfriends dads 1st gen to get painted (same color truck) and getting my fuel door painted as well. Need to get a lock for it. It's got a locking fuel cap on it at the moment.

 

thats a neat cap.

 

I think it's pretty ugly. Works good though. If I ever found a regular height paint matched topper I'd be all over it.

 

Made it to the first destination. Got a P0420 code 150 miles in. Probably from the downstream O2 sensor I couldn't get the nut off of when I did the rest. Need to average out my MPG numbers tomorrow and add up fuel costs. Heading to bed now.

 

Going from Minnesota to South Dakota was expensive. Getting like 12mpg max due to hills and the speed limit being 80mph.
Things I'm noticing now that I'm driving so far is that I should have done the rear shocks when I did the fronts. The ass end bounces around a lot but didn't really haul this much weight around on the highway previously and I figured it'd be fine.

Driver and passenger mirror glass vibrate and make it hard to see. Ive seen the fix for this on here before but hadn't really noticed my truck doing it before.

Trying to set cruise control on the way here was a mess. Just keeps hunting for gears based on hills and such so about 3 hours of the drive I just went without it and fluctuated speed on my own.

Otherwise everything is going smooth. No leaks or anything to report.

 

I don't use CC when towing in hills.

I've seen some of the guys on here say with the gear hunting you can toggle OD and it'll do some finagley magic to make it grab a gear.