Badclown,
Great build thread! I've owned my 98 since 2000 and the 3rd gens with very little maintenance will last forever. I only have 277K on mine and the biggest expenses over the years (aside from tires) were the power steering rack, clutch/flywheel replacement, and various suspension parts. Right out of the box, the 96 to 99s with 32" tires had more than adequate clearance for the type of mild to moderate off roading that most people do (not including rock crawling). Upping tire size to 33"s or more required quite a bit of more suspension cost and fender trimming. The 99 Highlanders were the cat's meow. Unfortunately, Toyota decided to lower the stock suspension height in later generations to accomodate more regular folks whose main offroad activity is to traverse the gravel parking lot to their kid's soccer games.
I've been w/ the 3rd gen community since 2000 as a mod over at Yotatech and Ultimateyota for many years but have trailed off so to speak since about 2015-ish. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm not the expert, but I know a lot about these trucks. Here's a few pics of mine. Swapped out to 99 coils/springs with Tokicos, 4.10 rear w/ retrofitted e-locker (not wired up at the moment), Sherpa rack, and True North rear tire carrier (modified to sit on driver's side).
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