Haven’t posted much on here, but the forums have been a huge resource in vehicle and trip planning over the past few years. My wife and I left our full-time jobs in San Francisco in March of 2016 and set off on a 9 month trip from Northern California up to Alaska and back down to Central TX. We had a 2000 7.3 f250 with an All Terrain popup camper, and couldn’t have been happier with it:
We originally set out to live on the road for 9 months to a year, but have been able to offset travel expenses with freelance design work, so we’ve extended our plans and are now in Baja continuing south, with the hopes of making it down to Panama this year. Anyway, while our last rig treated us incredibly well, we’d heard of issues with some central american border crossings in ¾ ton and larger trucks. Won’t get into too many details here, but long story short, after lots of research, and considering our needs for a more future-proof vehicle, we decided to downsize.
Land Cruisers have been on our list since we started planning a few years ago, and towards the end of last year’s travels, we decided to pull the trigger on a 100-series we found in Colorado:
Close to 200k miles, but it was a well maintained family hauler, and had 2 timing belts done. I drove it home to Austin, left it with family, and flew back to Colorado to finish our trip.
We stayed in Austin over the winter and built it out, including:
BajaRack utility flat rack
CVT shasta RTT
OME shocks, torsion bars, and rear springs
295/75r16 BFG AT/KO2’s
Slee wheel spacers
Slee diff drop
Slee dual battery tray (modified to fit a larger battery)
T-max dual battery kit (with custom 2awg cable)
Blue sea SafetyHub 150
600w Samlex pure sine inverter
12v accessory plugs
ARB front bumper with ComeUp Dv-9s winch
ARB rear bumper with wheel and fuel carriers
KISS drawers (from cruzerDave over on ih8mud)
ARB fridge on HD slides
Frontrunner storage boxes
Ammo can lock boxes
Propane tank mount
Shovel and axe mounts
Tent, hatch, and annex LED lighting wired to switches
It was a bit hectic getting everything done in a such a hurry, not wanting to lose momentum on our travels, but we were able to hit the road again in late February. This thread will probably be more of a photo dump of the build (as everything's done now), but we’re also keeping a blog at northboundanddown.com, and a much more up-to-date instagram @northbound.and.down.
Anyway, build pics to follow, but here's how she sits currently:
We originally set out to live on the road for 9 months to a year, but have been able to offset travel expenses with freelance design work, so we’ve extended our plans and are now in Baja continuing south, with the hopes of making it down to Panama this year. Anyway, while our last rig treated us incredibly well, we’d heard of issues with some central american border crossings in ¾ ton and larger trucks. Won’t get into too many details here, but long story short, after lots of research, and considering our needs for a more future-proof vehicle, we decided to downsize.
Land Cruisers have been on our list since we started planning a few years ago, and towards the end of last year’s travels, we decided to pull the trigger on a 100-series we found in Colorado:
Close to 200k miles, but it was a well maintained family hauler, and had 2 timing belts done. I drove it home to Austin, left it with family, and flew back to Colorado to finish our trip.
We stayed in Austin over the winter and built it out, including:
BajaRack utility flat rack
CVT shasta RTT
OME shocks, torsion bars, and rear springs
295/75r16 BFG AT/KO2’s
Slee wheel spacers
Slee diff drop
Slee dual battery tray (modified to fit a larger battery)
T-max dual battery kit (with custom 2awg cable)
Blue sea SafetyHub 150
600w Samlex pure sine inverter
12v accessory plugs
ARB front bumper with ComeUp Dv-9s winch
ARB rear bumper with wheel and fuel carriers
KISS drawers (from cruzerDave over on ih8mud)
ARB fridge on HD slides
Frontrunner storage boxes
Ammo can lock boxes
Propane tank mount
Shovel and axe mounts
Tent, hatch, and annex LED lighting wired to switches
It was a bit hectic getting everything done in a such a hurry, not wanting to lose momentum on our travels, but we were able to hit the road again in late February. This thread will probably be more of a photo dump of the build (as everything's done now), but we’re also keeping a blog at northboundanddown.com, and a much more up-to-date instagram @northbound.and.down.
Anyway, build pics to follow, but here's how she sits currently: