A fifth-generation 4Runner Trail Premium, and the four jobs I have actually done to it: the drawers in the back, the bumper and winch on the front, the lights, and the wiring nobody sees.
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The truck is a 2014 Toyota 4Runner Trail Premium — a fifth-generation 4Runner, and specifically the off-road trim rather than the comfortable one. It has been the platform for four separate projects, and this page is those four projects with the photographs I took while doing them.
A note before any of it, because it decides how you should read this page. I am going to describe the hardware and not name most of the brands. The bumper is "the new front bumper". The winch is "the winch". Where a part is clearly identifiable in one of these photos I will say what it is; where it is not, I would be guessing, and an invented part number on a page about my own truck is worse than no part number at all. Exact names go in when I have them written down.
Why the Trail trim, honestly
The fifth-generation 4Runner came in trims that look similar and are not. The Trail — later renamed TRD Off-Road — is the one with the off-road hardware, and three specific things put it there:
KDSS. Toyota's Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System, which hydraulically decouples the anti-roll bars when the suspension articulates. In plain terms it lets the truck keep its wheels on uneven ground without being a boat on the road — normally you pick one of those two, and KDSS is the mechanism that lets you have both.
A locking rear differential. An open differential sends power to whichever wheel has the least grip, which is exactly backwards when one wheel is in the air. A locker forces both rear wheels to turn together. It is the single most useful traction feature on a vehicle like this.
Crawl Control. Low-speed throttle and brake modulation handled by the truck so you can concentrate on steering.
That combination is why this trim and not another one, and it is worth understanding before you shop a used 4Runner — the trims are close enough in appearance and far enough apart in capability that people buy the wrong one. Toyota's own site is the place to confirm what any given model year and trim actually carries, and a VIN check is worth doing on a used one rather than trusting a badge.
Project one: the rear storage system
This is the one I am most pleased with, because it is entirely built rather than bought.
The platform in bare plywood, before it went in the truck. Two bays, a flat deck, and the whole thing built to the shape of the cargo area rather than to a rectangle.
Test fit. This is the step that decides whether the whole thing works — a cargo area is not square, the wheel arches intrude, and the floor is not flat.
One of the side pieces in place. Fitting to the trim rather than around it is what makes the finished system look like it belongs there.
The design brief was simple and it is the right one for a vehicle drawer system: a flat load floor at the top, with everything underneath reachable without unloading what is on top. That is the entire argument for drawers over bins. With bins, the thing you need is always under the thing you do not.
Finished and installed. Two drawers with flush latches, a carpeted deck on top, and a usable flat surface where there used to be a sloping cargo floor.
The full width. The deck runs the whole cargo area, which is what makes it useful as a surface as well as a lid.
Both drawers out, which is the honest picture of what a system like this is for: a long case down one side, and recovery and vehicle gear down the other — gloves, a jump pack, tools, hearing protection.
What actually matters if you build one
The slides are the build. Everything else is carpentry. Buy locking slides rated well above what you think you need, because a static load rating and a drawer bouncing down a washboard road are different problems, and a drawer that opens itself on a slope is a genuinely bad time.
Template the floor before you cut anything. Cardboard first. The floor has ribs, drain plugs, tie-down points and a slope, and none of it is where you expect.
Weight is the hidden cost. Plywood plus slides plus contents adds up quickly, all of it behind the rear axle. It changes how the truck rides and it eats payload.
Anchor it to something structural. Factory tie-down points, or proper anchors through a backing plate. A hundred-pound drawer system that is not attached to the vehicle is a hundred-pound projectile.
With the window panels in. Rigid MOLLE panels over the rear quarter glass turn dead vertical space into mounting points, which is exactly where a cargo area is short.
The same panels from inside, with the overhead one above the load deck. Vertical and ceiling space is the storage nobody uses.
Project two: the front bumper and the winch
The new front bumper in daylight, with the light bar in the center aperture. The factory plastic bumper is gone and what replaced it is steel with a winch behind it.
Mid-install with the hood up. A bumper swap on a modern vehicle is as much an electrical job as a mechanical one — there are sensors, lights and harnesses in the factory bumper that all have to go somewhere.
Replacing a bumper is the project people underestimate. The mechanical part is straightforward — the factory bumper comes off, the new one bolts to the frame horns. The parts that take the time are everything else:
Weight, and what it does to the front end. A steel bumper and a winch together are a serious amount of mass hung ahead of the front axle. It changes the ride height, the steering feel and the suspension's working range. This is why people end up doing suspension after a bumper, whether they planned to or not.
The winch has to be wired to the battery properly. Not a convenience circuit — a winch pulls current on a scale nothing else on the vehicle does, and the cable, the terminals and the isolation all have to be sized for it. This is the one job on this page I would tell a first-timer to be genuinely careful with.
Everything the factory bumper was carrying has to be relocated. Fog lights, sensors, the license plate mount and the harnesses that fed them.
I have written about the recovery side of this properly on vehicle recovery gear, and the winch itself is a category covered in best winches. What is worth saying here is that a winch is a tool for getting yourself unstuck, and the shovel and the traction boards get used a great deal more often than the winch does.
Project three: the lights
Amber marker lights lit in the grille. These are the small ones that everybody notices first and that do the least actual work.
Three-quarter, markers on. The bar sits in the bumper aperture rather than on the roof, which keeps it out of the windshield's reflection.
The detail worth seeing: the long bar low in the bumper, a small cube pod beside it, and another pod up near the mirror. Three different lights doing three different jobs.
Head-on, everything on. The pods either side of the cowl are the ditch lights, and they are the ones that earn their money.
There are three kinds of light on the front of this truck and they are genuinely doing different jobs, which is the thing to understand before buying any of them:
The bumper light bar throws distance, straight ahead. It is the one that photographs well and the one you legally cannot use on a public road.
The cowl-mounted pods — ditch lights — throw sideways. They light the edge of the trail, the bank you are about to put a wheel on, and the animal that is about to step out. On an actual trail at actual speed these are more useful than the bar, and almost nobody fits them first.
The amber grille markers are marker lights. They are visibility to others, not illumination for you, and they are the cosmetic end of this.
If you are fitting lights in order of usefulness, it is pods, then bar, then markers. Almost everyone does it in exactly the opposite order.
One specification worth paying for: an amber option on the pods. White light in dust, fog or falling snow reflects straight back at you and makes seeing worse rather than better. Amber does that far less. It is the difference between a light that works in the conditions you actually need a light in and one that does not.
Project four: the wiring, which is the real work
None of the above is visible in a photograph and all of it is the part that took the longest.
The switch panel, which is the whole point of doing this properly. The added rockers sit in the factory blanks beside the mirror controls and the 120-volt outlet — they look like they came with the truck, and that is deliberate.
New runs behind the dash. Color-coding as you go is the difference between a circuit you can fault-find in five years and one you cannot.
Where the accessory wiring lands in the engine bay. Relays and fusing live here, close to the power source, which is the correct place for them.
At the battery. Every accessory circuit starts here, and the terminal end is where a rushed job shows up first.
Trim off in the rear quarter to run wiring to the back. Most of an accessory-wiring job is taking interior panels off carefully and putting them back without breaking clips.
The principles I work to, in order of how much trouble ignoring them causes:
Fuse at the source, always. The fuse protects the wire, not the accessory. It goes as close to the battery as you can physically put it, because everything downstream of it is what the fuse is protecting.
Relays, so the switch is only carrying a signal. A dash switch running a light bar directly is carrying the full load through the dash, and it is a fire waiting for a bad crimp. The relay does the work; the switch just tells it to.
Loom, grommet and clamp every run. Split loom over the wire, a proper grommet at every pass-through, and a clamp or a tie every foot or so. Vibration plus a sharp edge equals a short, and it will happen at the worst possible time.
Adhesive-lined heat-shrink connectors outside the cabin. Not crimp caps, not electrical tape. The adhesive seals the joint against water rather than merely covering it.
Plugs, not permanent splices. Every accessory should be able to unplug. The first time you have to pull the bumper you will understand why.
Switches in factory blanks. A 4Runner dash has spare switch positions. Using them looks right and, more usefully, keeps the wiring inside the dash rather than hanging under it.
The full version of this — relay wiring diagrams, fuse blocks, wire gauge against current and length, and the tools that make it survivable — is on 12V accessory wiring done right. That page is the theory; this one is what it looks like when it is in a truck.
What is next, and what I am not claiming
There is more on this truck than four projects, and there will be a fuller parts list on this page when I have written the exact part names down. Until then, the honest position is that the work is mine, the photographs are mine, and the brands are not stated because I would be guessing at half of them.
What is on this page: what I built, why, and what I would do differently. What is not: invented part numbers, a suspension spec I have not confirmed, or a claim that any of this was tested rather than used.
Adhesive-lined heat-shrink butt connectors are the minimum standard for anything that lives outside the cabin. Ten dollars, and it is the difference between a repair and a recurring fault.
The hardware that decides whether a homemade drawer system is a drawer system or a box that sticks. Locking, full extension, and rated far above what a vehicle drawer actually carries.
A pet cord protector that ranks in automotive loom searches. It may well be fine behind a TV; the listing states no temperature rating, and a vehicle is exactly where that rating is the whole point.
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In detail
The picks, in full
01
Best value
Nilight ZH409 20 in LED Light Bar
20 inTriple rowFlood/spot comboHarness included
7.6/10
Under fifty dollars with the wiring harness in the box, which is the part people forget to budget for and then bodge.
Output
8
Build quality
6
Wiring included
9
Sealing
6
Value
9
What's good
+The included harness has the relay and the inline fuse, so the install starts from a sane place
+Flood and spot in one bar covers both the trail and the distance
+Cheap enough that a rock strike is annoying rather than expensive
What's not
−Budget LEDs and budget housings — expect the finish and the seals to age faster
−Triple row is a deep bar; check it clears your bumper opening
Skip it if…
…the bar is going somewhere hard to reach. The cost of this class is that you will replace it sooner, and that maths changes if replacing it is a two-hour job.
Adhesive-lined heat-shrink butt connectors are the minimum standard for anything that lives outside the cabin. Ten dollars, and it is the difference between a repair and a recurring fault.
Sealing
9
Gauge range
8
Build quality
8
Value
9
What's good
+The adhesive lining seals the joint against water rather than merely covering it
+Color coding by gauge stops the most common crimping mistake
+Enough pieces for a whole accessory install with spares
What's not
−Needs a proper ratcheting crimper — pliers make a joint that pulls apart
−Butt splices belong in a harness, not hanging in free air
Skip it if…
…you do not own a ratcheting crimper yet. Buy that first; good connectors crimped badly are worse than cheap connectors crimped well.
VEVOR Locking Drawer Slides, 24 in / 500 lb (Pair)
24 in500 lb pair ratingFull extensionLocks open and closed
7.8/10
The hardware that decides whether a homemade drawer system is a drawer system or a box that sticks. Locking, full extension, and rated far above what a vehicle drawer actually carries.
Load rating
9
Locking
9
Extension
9
Weight
4
Value
8
What's good
+Locking in both directions is the specification that matters in a moving vehicle
+Full extension means the back of the drawer is reachable without unloading the front
+Ball-bearing slides keep working with grit on them, which cabinet slides do not
What's not
−Heavy — a pair adds real weight before the drawer or its contents
−The 500 lb figure is a static rating, not a rating for load bouncing down a trail
Skip it if…
…you are building a light gear shelf rather than drawers. Slides this heavy are wasted under a plywood platform with no moving parts.
30 ft1/2 in onlyNo stated temperature ratingMarketed for pet cords
4.3/10
A pet cord protector that ranks in automotive loom searches. It may well be fine behind a TV; the listing states no temperature rating, and a vehicle is exactly where that rating is the whole point.
Coverage
4
Size range
3
Build quality
5
Value
5
What's good
+Cheapest split loom in the search results
+Fine for indoor cable management
What's not
−No stated temperature rating, and automotive loom lives near heat sources where that number decides whether it survives
−One diameter only, so it will not cover a real accessory-wiring job
−It ranks here on keyword overlap with automotive loom, not because it was made for the job
−The automotive kit above costs fourteen dollars more and covers three diameters
Skip it if…
…the loom is going in a vehicle. Buy conduit sold for automotive use, and check what temperature it claims.
Recovery gear before anything bolted on. A shovel, traction boards and a strap will get you out of far more situations than a winch will, and they cost a tenth as much. See vehicle recovery gear and best recovery boards.
Storage. It changes how you use the vehicle every single day rather than on the four days a year you are actually off-road.
Lights — pods first. Ditch lights before a bar, and buy an amber option if you ever see dust or fog.
Wiring done properly, alongside the lights. Not after them. Retrofitting correct wiring onto an accessory you already bodged in is twice the work.
Bumper and winch last. Most expensive, heaviest, and the one that cascades into suspension work.
Wiring parts that are worth the money
The picks above are the wiring and hardware end of this build, and the honest ranking is that the boring parts matter most. Adhesive-lined heat-shrink connectors and split loom are twenty dollars between them and they are the difference between a circuit that works for ten years and one that gives you an intermittent fault you will never find.
Relays, fuse blocks and switch panels are covered in more depth, with picks, on 12V accessory wiring done right — there was no sense duplicating them here.
A note on the light bar tiers
There is a budget bar and a named-brand bar in the picks above and the gap between them is about four times the money. What that money buys is sealing and housing quality — the things that decide whether a bar survives five years of weather and vibration or two.
If the bar is somewhere easy to reach and you are fine replacing it, buy the cheap one; the light output difference is far smaller than the price difference suggests. If it is buried behind a bumper you would have to remove, buy once.
How these were picked
I haven't handled these. Here's what I did instead.
Everyone in this category says they tested twenty of these. I haven't tested any, and I say so. What I do instead: read the manufacturer's manual and published specification, compile the numbers that decide the purchase, do the arithmetic in the open, check the live price, and name one product to skip. The scores above are judgments from that research against a published rubric — they are not measurements I took, because I do not have a lab and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
Questions
Frequently asked
Why aren't the bumper and winch brands named?+
Because I have not written the part numbers down, and guessing at them on a page about my own truck would be exactly the kind of fabrication this site exists not to do. The hardware is described accurately; the names go in when I have them.
Is a drawer system worth building rather than buying?+
If you have the tools and the patience, yes — a commercial system for this vehicle costs multiples of the plywood and slides, and a built-to-fit system uses the awkward corners a universal one cannot. If you do not enjoy the work, buy one. The slides are the part you should not economize on either way.
Light bar or ditch lights first?+
Ditch lights, and it is not close. They light the sides of the trail at the speeds you actually drive it. A bar throws distance you can rarely use and cannot legally run on a road. Almost everybody buys them in the wrong order, myself included.
How much of this can a first-timer do?+
The storage and the lights, comfortably, with time and a template. The accessory wiring is very learnable and the 12V wiring page is written for exactly that. The winch power wiring is the one I would tell you to take seriously or hand to somebody who does this for a living — the currents involved are in a different category from everything else here.
We do not run a testing lab and we do not pretend to. Where a measured number came from a manufacturer's published specification or someone else's lab, we name them and link them. Where we could not verify something, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. Read the full method.
