You might remember our $5,000 Toyota prerunner toy that we put together in November 2008's issue. We bolted on the Downey Grand Slam suspension (a killer deal for what you get), installed an All Pro rollcage, cut-out the fenders a bit, and threw on a set of 32-inch BF Goodrich tires on Pro Comp wheels. It's been serving us well over the last seven months, acting as a parts hauler, fun desert beater, and as transportation when everything else is in the shop. And our little '93 Toyota has done it all with 190,000 miles on the odometer. Man, we really love American fullsize trucks, but our Dodge, Jinxy, is on its third engine, our Super Duty, The STD, is lying in our parking lot with a messed up Powerstroke, and our Bronco, The Juice, recently received a new engine as well. Hmm, maybe there is something to these compact foreign pickups....
With tax-return time coming up, we decided we'd take our budget-build prerunner the next step and add some performance seats, five-point harnesses, a couple more tubes to better reinforce our rollcage, and some gauges to better monitor what's going on underneath the hood. We also took the time to do some serious tire clearancing, as we found a rubbing issue when stuffing the 32-inch tire if the steering wheel was turned.
We went to two shops, Total Chaos and T and J Performance, to use their expertise to build a better Toy for ourselves. Total Chaos knew how to hack out the firewall for more tire clearance and add the Glassworks fenders, and T and J was able to get a couple extra bars onto our rollcage while adding some Mastercraft seats, belts, and Auto Meter gauges at the same time.
This little Toyota has gone from stock beater to a nice modified machine, but we still have no name for it. We've toyed with the idea of naming it "Greenie" since it is green in color, our sales guy, Nick Green, is the owner of it, and our future plans include turning it "green" with a propane conversion. It makes sense to us, but Nick doesn't seem to like that name (hater). Some other suggestions were The Green Lantern, The Flying Pickle, and Vomit. What do you think it should be called? Email us at Jerrod.jones@off-roadweb.com and tell us your suggestion. If we pick your name suggestion, we'll send you some OFF-ROAD swag and give you credit in the next story on this truck.
 We started off at T and J...  We started off at T and J Perfomance in Orange, California. The guys at T and J specialize in building Jeepspeed racers, but have a lot of experience on other projects too...... |  ......Our plan at their shop...  ......Our plan at their shop was to weld two more support bars into the rollcage--one across the dash and one in back of the seats. Our All Pro rollcage had a full halo at the top and came down at four points in the cab around the occupants, but there were no lateral cage supports halfway down the bars...... |  ......We stayed with the same...  ......We stayed with the same size 1.5-inch DOM tubing, and T and J got them welded in no time at all..... |
 ......Not only did this give...  ......Not only did this give us points to mount 5-point harnesses to (in back of the seats) and gauge pods on the dash, it also gave us a much stouter `cage and silenced the rollcage-on-body squeaking we had begun to hear. |  The old bench in our Toyota...  The old bench in our Toyota actually wasn't in too bad of shape, but it certainly did nothing to keep us in place when bouncing around. Therefore, we ditched the factory bench and ordered up some Sportsman suspension seats from Mastercraft...... |  .....We also got the optional...  .....We also got the optional direct-bolt-in seat brackets that utilize the factory mounting points to make seat mounting easy. We got all black fabric because it is the best for hiding nasty stains.We also got 2-inch strap five-point harnesses to hold us in...... |
 ......The rear bar that T...  ......The rear bar that T and J Performance welded into the rollcage gave us the perfect mounting point for our shoulder harnesses. Should harnesses should always be supported around shoulder level for proper restraining. If you do anchor the shoulder harnesses into the floor, you must make sure to they are run around a stout mounting point near shoulder-high levels. |  We wanted a bit more information...  We wanted a bit more information than the stock dash cluster was giving us, since the only things it showed were the speed, the fuel level, and how hot the engine was. After looking through Auto Meter's website we found gauges that not only looked sweet, but weren't too flashy and obvious. The ES gauge series that we got screamed of high quality though--an obvious trait when simply looking at the gauge faces...... |  ......We ordered up a tachometer,...  ......We ordered up a tachometer, a voltage indicator, an oil pressure gauge, a water temperature gauge (we didn't trust the factory one), and a boost gauge for the turbocharger we plan to install one day. We went with the full-sweep electric gauges so we wouldn't have to run pressurized lines into the cab.This is a compact truck, and there's not much room on the dash, so we also opted for Roll Pod gauge mounts that will bolt directly onto the bars of out rollcage. The one problem we ran into is having such a small truck and using such a big tach. Auto Meter does make a 3.375-inch diameter tachometer in the ES line, but they do not have a Roll Pod for this size of gauge. Therefore, we stuck with the 5-inch tach. |
 Mike Barnett at T And J Performance...  Mike Barnett at T And J Performance mounted the gauges in-line on the `cage bar that parallels the dash....... |  .....We tried all sorts of...  .....We tried all sorts of spots to see where we could mount the 5-inch ES tachometer and shift light where it would be visible and not in the way of outer visibility through the windshield, but had no real luck..... |  ......We ended up ditching...  ......We ended up ditching the shift light and mounting the tachometer right next to the other gauges, just above the glovebox..... |
 ......Don't the ES gauges...  ......Don't the ES gauges look sweet when lit up at night? |  With our Mastercraft seats,...  With our Mastercraft seats, belts, Auto Meter gauges, and two extra bars welded into the rollcage at T and J Performance, we headed over to Total Chaos in Corona, California, to take care of our tire rubbing issue in the front end. This wasn't just a matter of bolting some Glassworks fiberglass on, as the tires rubbed the firewall pretty harshly too. This was the current OFF-ROAD staff's first crack at a Toyota of this era, and we weren't sure what to do. After looking at some other people's trucks and asking around, we learned that we needed to cut and section-out the firewall. Duh, yeah, that was obvious! But we didn't know how to go about doing it. Our friends at Total Chaos did, though. | |