Justin's Tundra.
A clean 1st gen daily driver.

Justin runs, a skateboard distribution company down the road in Oceanside, and his 2000 Tundra Access Cab is what he drives every day. He came to us because the suspension wasn't right — Bilstein 5100s on factory coils and stock leafs with a 1-inch leveling block, and his note to us was that speed bumps and potholes were "just shocking." First gen Tundras are great trucks, but a stiff shock package on a half-ton with a topper and the occasional dirt bike on the hitch is a punishing daily driver. The plan was simple: make this thing ride right, slow it down properly, and quiet the cabin down. Three visits, no excess, the right parts in each spot.

The first round was suspension. Up front, an Arizona Desert Racing front coilover with remote reservoirs and compression adjusters; out back, the matching ADS rear shocks with remote res and adjusters, paired with Archive Garage Explorer Series "Shackleton" medium-duty lift leaf springs on OEM-style U-bolts. Archive Garage Hammer Hangers and 4-inch shackles correct the rear geometry for the new pack so it actually works the way it's supposed to. SPC adjustable upper control arms keep the front alignment dialed at the new ride height. Spidertrax front wheel spacers were added on install day to clear the external shock reservoirs, with a little plastic trimming behind the fenders to make everything coexist happily. Tires are 285/75R16 BFG KO2s on the factory 16-inch steelies — clean, factory-look stance, real all-terrain rubber, full-size matching spare. While we had the front end apart we also swapped in a fresh OEM Toyota lower ball joint kit since these trucks famously eat them, and Justin's were original.

The second visit was brakes and armor. The Powerbrake X-Line big brake kit (TOY414RED-25, 6-lug 4WD) is a serious upgrade — machined aluminum calipers, oversized rotors, braided steel lines, and performance pads. It's not a nicer-feeling stock-equivalent kit; it's a genuinely larger braking system that gives the truck the stopping power it should have come with. We also installed a set of White Knuckle Off-Road rock sliders that day — black powder-coated tube with silver top tread plates that tie nicely into the factory silver accents on the truck. The third visit, a year later, was about the cabin: full Dynamat Xtreme sound deadening through the floors, back wall, doors, and behind the back seats, plus a Kicker 6.5-inch speaker upgrade. Sound deadening is one of those mods you don't appreciate until you've done it — and on a 1st gen Tundra with 165,000 miles on it, it makes the truck feel a decade newer at highway speed. Built simple, built to drive every day.