The Ultimate 1st Gen Tundra Overland Build

The Off-Road Toyota You Really Want

The holy grail of Toyota off-road adventuremobiles might just be the 1st gen Tundra—especially one outfitted like this example from Equipt Expedition Outfitters. This often- overlooked platform offers modern “mid-sized” pickup size, V8 power, and nearly three-quarter-ton truck towing and load capacity—all in a package that costs a fraction of a current generation Tundra or Tacoma.

Let’s take a minute to look at the other Toyota options in the American off-road landscape: The Tacoma has become the gold standard for mid-size pickup truck adventure platforms, although it has grown to almost full-size pickup dimensions, and has always had issues with power and payload capacity.

“The Equipt Tundra might just be the best overall package in North America for Toyota offroad adventuremobiles today.”

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The Tacoma also comes at a premium price—both as new and on the used market. The new Tundra has grown to proper big-American-truck proportions, and also demands a serious sticker price. In the SUV format, you have the 4Runner and the 200 Series Land Cruiser, which are both very capable and comfortable machines.

The 4Runner is now plenty big to carry all your adventuremobile accessories, but it is plagued by the same high costs, low power and dismal load capacity of the Tacoma. The 200 Series is a truly impressive machine in all ways. It is built to the highest level of quality, giving it true off-road performance, reliability and luxury. It, however, demands a massive pile of cash, and is too large to fit down many trails.

While Toyota, arguably, offers some of the best new North American off-road vehicles today, they do demand quite a bit of money, and most require some quality aftermarket modifications to prepare them for the rigors of the trail.

First-Gen Advantages

The 1st generation Toyota Tundra, from 2000 to 2006, addresses many of the downfalls of the newer Toyota 4×4 lineup. First, it offers incredible value, as a quality example can be purchased for under $15,000. Second, it offers payload and towing capacities that rival and even exceed the modern Tacoma, which is very similar in size.

The older Tundra offers a whopping 4,500-pound towing capacity and 1,475-pound load capacity, where the new Tacoma only offers 3,500-pound towing and 1,295-pound load capacity. The first-generation Tundra is the same height as the new Tacoma, and only six inches longer and two inches wider. The new Tacoma does weigh in at 145 pounds less, while offering 33 more horsepower.

If you add a TRD supercharger to the 1st gen Tundra’s 4.7L V8, like Equipt has done, then you get a pickup with 353 horsepower—75 more than the new Tacoma. But, the big advantage of the Tundra’s V8 really comes in the form of torque, which offers 50 foot-pounds more in stock form, and an insane 192 foot-pounds more in supercharged form.

Nice Package

The Equipt Tundra might just be the best overall package in North America for Toyota offroad adventuremobiles today. Its supercharged 4.7L V8 offers nearly the same horsepower and torque as the new 5.7L V8 Tundra, while offering the more trail-friendly dimensions of the new Tacoma.

It also offers payload and towing numbers that are close to that of a three-quarter-ton truck, allowing it to carry or tow all of your adventure gear to the far-away locations of your dreams. The independent front suspension (IFS) and rear solid-axle configuration provide a comfortable on-road ride, while retaining the durability and capability off road. The cherry on top is that even with a few pricey modifications, the first-gen Tundra still comes in at under half of the price of a new Toyota 4×4.

Complete Refresh

The first step for Equipt in creating this impressive overland adventuremobile was to freshen up their 12-year-old base-model, the 195K-mile, 1st gen Tundra Access Cab. To begin with a “like-new” platform, before starting the off-road and overland modifications, Equipt first completed a total maintenance refresh of this truck.

They began by updating all maintenance on the truck, including a new timing belt and all hoses and belts. All vehicle fluids were also flushed out and replaced. Impressively, for such a high-mileage vehicle, a compression wet test showed 185 psi, out of a possible 192 psi, across all cylinders.

New OEM headlights were fitted, as the original plastic lenses had fogged up—like they all do over time. The interior showed wear from nearly 200,000 miles of use, so the team fitted a huge pile of Toyota OEM replacement parts—everything from a new center console lid to small dash trim pieces—to bring the interior back to near-new condition. To elevate the build that much more, a set of leather, electric heated seats from a 2006 Tundra Double Cab Limited replaced the OEM SR5 cloth buckets, which were showing their age.

Fully Equipt

Now that the team at Equipt had a solid truck to work with, it was time to make some upgrades to better suit their needs. They planned to ask a lot from this truck, as it would be a shop-parts truck, show-display vehicle, as well as an overland adventuremobile. This meant it needed to be easily configurable between an empty truck bed, a rooftop tent and a living/storage system—and be able to haul a Four Wheel camper. On top of the versatility of the payload configuration, it would also need the suspension and power to handle these varying loads on both the highway and moderate off-road trails.

The first order of business was to sort out the Tundra’s performance and off-road prowess. On a build like this, one should always begin with the suspension, wheels and tires. For this build, Equipt went with a modest three-inch lift, and Bilstein 5100 shocks all around.

To better handle heavy hauling and towing loads, they installed Firestone Air Bags, with an Air-Lift compressor and remote system in the rear of the truck.

With the lift in place, it was easy to fit 285/75-16 BF Goodrich AT KO2 tires, wrapped around 16-inch Fuel wheels. Taking this build to the next level, a hard-to-find Toyota TRD Supercharger was fitted, boosting the power by 118 additional horsepower. The extra power makes load-hauling, towing and off-road obstacles a breeze—not to mention driving the truck a ton of fun!

Since this vehicle is based in Utah, it experiences lots of dusty trails, which makes getting clean, fresh air to the engine all the more important. There is not a snorkel on the market for the first-gen Tundra, but an ARB 100 Series Land Cruiser Safari snorkel was modified to fit, as both vehicles utilize the same 4.7L V8. To top off the off-road accessories on this build, a front ARB Sahara bumper was fitted, along with a Warn 10K winch, and a full complement of ARB driving and fog lights.

Configurations

With the vehicle now mechanically sound and ready to tackle anything in its path, next up was equipping it with some gear storage and camping systems. There are three main configurations that this truck utilized: empty bed, rooftop tent and truck camper.

The empty-bed version uses not much more than a K9 roof rack over the cab, allowing for the most versatile gear-hauling setup. The over-cab rack does hold 40 liters of water storage, two gasoline jerry cans, an axe and a shovel. The rooftop tent configuration is a complex, custom and unique system that has been specifically designed for this truck, and will be finding its way into production soon. It uses a two-level platform rack system over the bed, with custom uprights that support the Eezi-Awn RTT and 270-degree Manta awning on top. The lower platform is equipped with Alu-Boxes and a set of Maxtrax; hung below this lower platform rack is a K9 stainless-steel camp table, in a table slide mount.

In the bed of the truck, a custom AT Overland platform system features a slide-out area for the 52L National Luna fridge, a top-entry storage bin with ARB compressor, an inverter and National Luna portable power pack, and a full six-foot long pull-out drawer. The platform also has aircraft tie-down rails on top, allowing for even more secure gear storage between the platform and first rack level. The AT Overland platform system is easily removable, as it is just held down with four 3/8-inch steel eyebolts—which are also used to secure the Four Wheel camper upon install.

“If you add a TRD supercharger to the first-gen Tundra’s 4.7L V8, like Equipt has done, then you get a pickup with 353 horsepower—75 more than the new Tacoma.”

Next Steps

A build like this one is never truly complete, although it is already a formidable vehicle package. There are a few additions to the Equipt Tundra currently in the works, including an ARB rear air-locker, slider side steps and a remote auto-start system. The lockers and sliders will make this truck that much more formidable off road, in a huge variety of conditions.

“Equipt has taken this vehicle platform to the next level with a powerful and versatile build, which is both understated and extremely capable.”

The current North American market for Toyota off-road vehicles is quite hot, with a lot of interest in the Fourth Gen 4Runner and Lexus GX470, both powered by Toyota’s venerable 4.7L V8. There is good reason for this, as the vehicles are light, nimble and have a great power-to-weight ratio.

The 1st Gen Tundra Access Cab offers the same, but with the added versatility of the pickup bed. Equipt has taken this vehicle platform to the next level with a powerful and versatile build, which is both understated and extremely capable. The Equipt Tundra might just be the ultimate off-road/overland sleeper build.

By The Numbers Gen 3 Tacoma VS. 1st Gen Tundra

UPGRADES

2004 Toyota Tundra Access Cab SR5

Engine: TRD Supercharger

Suspension: 3-inch lift with Bilstein 5100s, Firestone Air Bags w/Air-Lift Compressor & Remote

Wheels & Tires: 16-inch Fuel Anza Matte Anthracite w/Black Ring Wheels & BF Goodrich AT KO2 tires (285/75-16)

Armor: ARB Sahara Front Bar

Lighting: ARB Intensity 7-inch Driving Lights (2), ARB Fog Lights (2)

Off-road Accessories: Warn VR10000 Winch, ARB 100 Series Safari Snorkel

Truck Bed Systems: AT Overland 6-foot Drawer/Platform (6’ Drawer, Fridge area, clam shell, aircraft tie-down rails, secured to FWC 3/8-inch steel eye bolts); National Luna 52L Fridge; Eezi-Awn Shuttle Front-Pull Fridge Slide; National Luna Portable Power Pack; ARB Twin Cylinder Compressor; Black and Decker 500W Inverter

Roof Rack Systems: Custom K9 Dual Level Bed Rack; Custom K9 Cab Rack; Eezi-Awn Series 3 1400 RTT; Eezi-Awn Manta 270 Degree Awning; Alu-Box ABS74 Cases (2); Alu-Box ABA42 Cases (4); Maxtrax (2 sets mounted on K9 Maxtrax Mount); K9 40L Water Storage; K9 Dual Jerry Can Holder; K9 Axe Mount; K9 Shovel Mount; K9 Stainless Steel Camp Table & Table Slide Mount