2004 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab TRD Limited, 3.4L V6, 4WD, automatic
The lights that stayed low
Patrick of Take The Truck had a free, easy place to mount a pair of Baja Designs LP9 Pros, high on the front of his camper. He turned it down over glare in bad weather and spent an afternoon making brackets instead. A first-generation Tacoma built by someone who writes down what his decisions cost.
Built by Patrick (Take The Truck)
Owned by Lindsey (Take The Truck)
Keeping the factory bumper
Two separate decisions at the front of this truck spend fabrication time to avoid buying an aftermarket bumper. The winch hides behind the stock one; the lights hang off brackets he cut himself.
Weather over reach
The lighting is placed for how it behaves when the air is full of dust or snow, not for how far it throws on a clear night.
Four people and a spare
Tire size, storage and sleeping platform are all bounded by what a family trip has to carry and by keeping a full-size spare in its factory home under the bed.
Serviceable a long way from home
Synthetic winch line, greasable shackles, rebuildable and externally adjustable shocks, manual locking hubs. Parts chosen to be fixed or tuned in a campsite.
What it gets right
The interesting thing about this truck is not the parts list, which is unremarkable, but that the reasoning behind it is written down. Patrick published why he put the lights where he put them, and he published the general principle behind it in a separate piece before the specific decision came up. That is rare. Most builds show evidence of good decisions and explain none of them.
In Patrick (Take The Truck)’s own account
- He names both places he could have mounted the LP9 Pros, and gives a reason for rejecting the easy one. The camper already had brackets. The bumper had nothing.
“up high over the cab on the front of the GFC (not ideal, and we had concerns of glare issues in poor visibility weather)”
Source - The principle behind that decision is one he had already published on its own, in a guide about choosing lights. It is the backscatter argument stated without the word.
“In precipitous or dusty conditions these poorly positioned lights will illuminate these particles right in front of your windshield, making visibility worse than just using your stock headlights.”
Source - The bracket work is documented down to the dimensions, which is how you can tell what the decision cost. Two half-inch holes per side through the top face of a bumper he had decided to keep.
“using some old rock slider L-brackets we had laying around in the garage, we cut them down flat to 3.25" x 4"”
Source - The tire size is argued from four constraints rather than the usual two, and the fourth is the one nobody else lists.
“This tire size allows for maximizing ground clearance without over-taxing the truck's axles and steering components off road, or requiring major modifications to the wheel well for clearance. Plus a full-size spare will still fit in the factory location under the bed.”
Source - He fitted an external transmission cooler because he had watched the temperature, not because a forum told him to, and he reports both readings.
“210-215°F in heavy stop-and-go traffic on occasion”
Measured: Monitored on a Bluetooth OBDLink MX+ reader before and after fitting a Hayden 678 cooler. After: below 200°F, usually 150 to 170°F, including summer mountain grades. - He put a meter on his heated seats because the number was not published anywhere, and found it was a factor of two below what he had assumed.
“After hooking up one of the seats to our Watt Meter to get an accurate read on the 'real life' power draw (as I couldn't find this info anywhere online), we found that each seats draw 20 watts/~1.5 amp on LOW and 65 watt/~5 amp on HIGH.”
Measured: Watt meter on one seat, on both settings. He had budgeted for about 10 amps. - The suspension was chosen over two named alternatives, on criteria that are all about living with it rather than about travel numbers.
“adjustability, serviceability, robustness, and race-truck pedigree of the ADS suspension won out”
Source
Dirtbeam’s reading
Not stated by the builder. This is what we take the build to show.
- The two decisions at the front of this truck are the same decision made twice. The hidden winch mount and the low light mount both exist to keep a factory bumper he likes, and both convert a purchase into fabrication time. He never connects them.
- The variable that actually matters in his lighting decision is not height above the ground, it is how far the lamp sits below his own eye. A camper front rail is at roughly cab-roof height, which is about where a driver's eyes are. The bumper puts the lamps around three feet lower, and that separation is what keeps the brightly lit air near the truck out of his line of sight.
- He picked the right answer for the lamp he owned rather than a rule that always holds. Baja Designs class the LP9 Pro as a Zone 1 to 3 light, and those are the zones they say to mount low. Their Racer Edition, the same housing with a tighter lens, is a Zone 4 and 5 light, and those they say to mount high. Had he bought that one, his reasoning would have pointed the wrong way.
What it gives up
This is the part most build write-ups skip, and it is the reason this one is worth reading. Patrick states the cost of his choices more often than not, and in one case recommends against something he built himself.
In Patrick (Take The Truck)’s own account
- He rebuilt his sleeping platform in aluminium extrusion, saved 45 pounds, and then told readers not to do it.
“we would not recommend this material for a sleeping platform unless weight savings is paramount”
Measured: A 39 percent reduction against the plywood original, about 45 pounds. He does not say how he weighed it. - With the plain version for anyone who came looking for a build guide.
“For the average truck camping setup, plywood is a much easier and practical build material.”
Source - Keeping the factory front bumper is an aesthetic choice and he says so, rather than dressing it up as a performance one. The winch goes behind it on a bolt-on hidden mount.
“we kinda love the stock front bumper on these first gen Tacomas”
Source - The rear shocks are on stock mounts and cannot use their full travel until a crossmember goes in. He names it as unfinished rather than leaving it to be discovered.
“Eventually we'll weld a crossmember between the bed and frame to take better advantage of the rear shocks travel, but for now we managed to utilize the stock shock mount locations.”
Source - The engine bay got hotter once he armoured the underside, which is the cost of skid plates that almost nobody mentions. Hood louvers were the fix.
“So far it appears to have accomplished everything we had hoped it would - lowering engine bay temps by 20 to 30 degrees on average”
Source
Dirtbeam’s reading
Not stated by the builder. This is what we take the build to show.
- The hidden winch mount costs approach angle. A winch behind the stock bumper sits lower and further forward than one carried in a plate bumper, and the factory valance stays in front of it. He gains the look he wanted and pays in the angle he can climb.
- Choosing a 15-inch wheel in 2022 costs him future brake options and narrows his tire choices, and he gives the reason as looks and budget. That tradeoff is real and unstated.
- He names Deaver leaf springs as future work to handle the truck fully laden, without ever publishing what it weighs. It is the one place the build reasons from a number he does not have.
- The hood louver figure is the only number on the build with no method behind it. He gives no instrument and no before-and-after reading, which is worth noticing precisely because everything else here does.
Lighting
A pair of Baja Designs LP9 Pros on the front bumper, on brackets Patrick cut down from leftover rock slider L-brackets to 3.25 by 4 inches and through-bolted with M12 hardware and two-inch backing washers. The camper had mounting points already and he did not use them, because light thrown from up there would have lit the dust and snow in front of his own windscreen. The lamp is a wide one: 10,245 forward lumens from nine LEDs at 124 watts, plus 2,302 lumens from six peripheral LEDs giving a 200 degree spread. Baja Designs class it as a Zone 1 to 3 light and specify those zones low, with 80 percent of a lighting package below the hood line. His mounting choice and the manufacturer's guidance agree, and neither cites the other.
Storage
An 8020 aluminium extrusion sleeping platform with a 58 inch drawer and a hydraulic-assisted lift for the stove, replacing a plywood original and saving about 45 pounds. Maxtrax Xtreme boards ride on the roof rack on homemade pins and quarter-inch aluminium flat stock, padlockable. The rack itself is a cut-down 60 inch Thule T-track set, bent to the roof contour and set on rivnuts in marine sealant, carrying Sherpa load bars. Patrick's own verdict on the platform is that plywood would have been the better call for most people.
Recovery
A Warn M8000 carried over from the previous truck, on an Amp'd Up bolt-on hidden mount that uses the factory recovery points and crossmember bolts, so the stock bumper stays. Warn Spydura synthetic line and a Factor 55 UltraHook, chosen for weight, safety and being repairable in the field. The fairlead is a Warn Epic 1.5 inch hawse, thicker than standard, to clear the factory bumper plastics and take some stress off the line: a small part that exists only because of the decision to keep the bumper.