Our last Tacoma which served us faithfully for many years had one glaring deficit, the 2.7 liter 4-cylinder motor. While this motor is renown for it’s stoutness and longevity, it struggled with our 1000lb ATC slide-in camper.
We thought about purchasing a new Tundra which would have been able to handle the camper but they are a bit larger and I really wanted another manual transmission. As all of you diehard Toyota fans are aware the manual is only offered on a couple trim packages within the Tacoma line. In our case we had to settle on a 5 foot bed to get a club cab and the 6-Speed manual gear box.
Our search began and after a month long search of Toyota dealers throughout the western U.S. a 2021 Toyota Tacoma Sport 4×4 MT6 miraculously showed up at the dealership 15 miles away from us.
True it was a “Sport” which meant no rear locker, but it does have Limited Slip so we went ahead and pulled the trigger.
First thing we did to our new V6 Tacoma was beef up the suspension as well as the tires and rims to accommodate the camper. For the rear we purchased the Deaver Stage III 9 leaf spring pack,. These are rated to carry 700-1000lbs. of weight and are a vast improvement over the stock Toyota 4 leaf suspension. For the front we added new heavy duty coilovers along with Camburg Upper Control Arms. Bilstein 5100 shocks all around give the truck a firm but comfortable ride.
For tires we decided to switch it up and go with the Falken Wildpeak A/T3W E-rated tires mounted on Method 703 wheels. We are running LT265/70 R17 in order to avoid any major trimming of the body.
Since we lost a foot of bed space with our new Tacoma 5foot versus 6, mounting our ATC slide-in camper would require some creative engineering. First the tailgate has to remain down to support rear of camper. Additionally we decided to go with external camper tiedowns rather than the internal factory mounted tie downs we had on our previous Taco. These are easier to monitor and adjust since they are in plain view.
I contacted ATC and they said it would be OK to use the camper corner jack brackets as a camper anchor point. We decided to give this a go, mounted the camper and drove out to the Anza Borrego desert for the day.
While the test was a success, I did not like the angle of the rear tiedowns (see above pic) and also would not be able to use my 8020 rack system that also utilizes the camper corner brackets.
Back to the drawing board or in this case the jig saw. A quick call to All Terrain campers and I found out that the refrigerator sits on a false floor. The jig saw made quick work of cutting an access panel to access the strong 3/4″ plywood below.
The new eye nuts are rated at 1700 pounds per corner so should be more than enough to hold the camper in place. I also used grade 8 bolts and oversized washers.
The new setup makes it much easier
