Toyota Troop Carrier (78 Series) Upgrade Guide
Your 78 Series Troop Carrier is the long-wheelbase, three-door wagon in the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series family. You share a dash, switchgear and much of the drivetrain with the 76 Series wagon and the 79 Series ute. The long body, barn doors and bench or forward-facing seating are yours alone, and they change how a build comes together. Plan your Troopy by area, in an order that makes sense, instead of buying parts one at a time: multimedia and head units, audio and speaker pods, lighting, steering and controls, mirrors and interior, with the 78 Series differences called out as they come up.
Every part here suits the 70 Series platform and fits the factory locations, so your cabin stays usable and the work stays reversible. Where a modification touches a safety system or the vehicle's construction, we'll point you at the compliance reading rather than skate past it.
Why your Troop Carrier needs its own plan
Most 70 Series parts are shared across the range. The Troop Carrier has features that change how you approach a build. You've got three doors: two at the front and a single side cargo door, with the main rear access through the barn doors. Fewer door cards to work with for speakers than a dual-cab, and the back of your cabin is a large open space rather than a fixed rear seat row.
Seating varies enormously between Troop Carriers. Some are bare two-seat work vehicles, some carry the factory rear bench or side-facing seats, and many touring builds replace the back entirely with drawers, a fridge slide and a sleeping platform. Because the rear gets re-purposed so often, you'll end up making audio and lighting decisions for the front cabin and the cargo area separately. Your dash and instrument binnacle are common 70 Series, so head units, steering wheels, mirrors and switch upgrades that suit the platform suit your Troopy too.
Troop Carrier upgrades by area
| Upgrade area | What you get | What it means on a Troopy | Where to look |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multimedia / head units | CarPlay and Android Auto head units in the factory dash aperture | Common 70 Series dash; same units that suit the 76 and 79 suit the Troopy | Head units |
| Audio & speaker pods | Speakers, door pods, amplifiers and sound upgrades | Fewer doors than a dual-cab; front door pods do most of the work | Audio |
| Lighting | Headlight upgrades and improved forward lighting | Shared 70 Series front; long touring distances make light output valuable | 70 Series headlights |
| Steering & controls | Steering wheels and retained factory control buttons | Airbag and clockspring compliance applies; match to build year | ADR Compliance |
| Mirrors & vision | Mirrors, reversing cameras and rear vision aids | Barn doors and a long body make rear vision and reversing aids worthwhile | ADR Compliance |
| Interior | Add-ons, integration and cabin tidy-up | Re-purposed rear means front-cabin and cargo zones are planned separately | Head unit add-ons |
That's the quick map of the common 78 Series upgrades: the Troopy-specific catch for each one, and the collection that holds the parts.
Multimedia and head units
The factory head unit in a 78 Series is modest, so it's the first thing most owners change. Your Troopy shares the 70 Series dash, which means the vehicle-specific units built for the 76 wagon and the 79 ute drop into your factory aperture too. A vehicle-specific unit takes the place of the original in its original location, so the screen sits low and central instead of perched on top of the dash.
You get wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto out of a modern unit, a reversing camera input, and far better audio output to drive a speaker upgrade. On a touring Troopy the navigation and hands-free calling earn their keep on long remote drives, and you're not handling a phone behind the wheel.
Browse the full range in the head units collection. The 70 Series options sit under LandCruiser 70 Series head units, which is the family that covers a 78 Series Troop Carrier. If your existing system is compatible and you want wireless smartphone integration without a full unit swap, add the AutoKit CCPA wireless CarPlay and Android Auto interface for less.
Audio and speaker pods
Your three-door layout is the thing that shapes an audio upgrade. A dual-cab gives you four door cards; you've got two front doors and a single side cargo door, so the front doors carry the sound stage. Speaker door pods earn their place here. The factory speaker locations in a 70 Series are shallow and poorly positioned for sound quality, and a moulded pod relocates the speaker into the door card properly, giving a larger driver a better mounting surface than the factory aperture allows.
PVS makes vehicle-specific door pods for the 70 Series that suit your front doors. For a front-only upgrade, the PVS front speaker door pods for the LandCruiser 70 Series give a quality front pair a clean, factory-look mounting. Running speakers front and rear, the PVS front and rear speaker door pods for the 70 Series cover both. The rear pods are designed around the 79 dual-cab and 76 wagon door layout, so confirm they suit your Troopy's seating and door configuration before you order.
| Audio upgrade | When it suits you | What to watch on a Troopy |
|---|---|---|
| Front speaker door pods | Most builds; the core of a Troopy audio upgrade | Front doors carry the sound stage on a three-door body; biggest single improvement |
| Front and rear door pods | Builds retaining rear seating in a wagon-style layout | Rear pods suit 79 dual-cab and 76 wagon doors; confirm fit for your seating setup |
| Head unit output | Driving a speaker upgrade cleanly | A modern unit provides cleaner output than the factory head unit to feed new speakers |
| Amplifier and sub | Touring builds wanting more output | Cargo area space behind the front seats can house an amp and enclosure |
Speakers, pods and audio gear sit in the audio collection, with head unit and speaker pairings grouped under car audio. Plan your head unit and speakers together, since the head unit provides the output that makes a speaker upgrade worth doing.
Lighting
A Troop Carrier earns its keep on long remote drives, and forward lighting is one of the higher-value upgrades for that use. Your 78 Series shares its front end with the rest of the 70 Series, so headlight upgrades built for the platform apply directly. Improved headlights give you a better beam pattern and more output than the original lamps, which counts on unlit country roads where the standard lighting feels marginal.
Browse the 70 Series options in the 70 Series headlights collection, part of the broader headlights range. Any lighting upgrade has to comply with the relevant Australian Design Rules for headlamps, and auxiliary driving lights carry their own mounting and aiming requirements, so check that what you fit is road-legal in your state.
Steering and controls
A steering wheel or control upgrade on a 70 Series touches the airbag system, so compliance drives the decision, not fitment alone. Your replacement wheel has to work correctly with the airbag and the clockspring that carries the wiring through the steering column. Get that wrong and you can disable the airbag or the horn, which is a safety problem and a roadworthy fail.
Your Troop Carrier uses the common 70 Series dash and column, so the same considerations apply as on the 76 and 79. Match any steering part to your build year, because airbag and clockspring arrangements changed over the model's life. Fit a vehicle-specific head unit and you keep the factory steering wheel control buttons for volume, track and phone, so the controls you already know stay within reach of the wheel.
Before you buy steering parts, read how steering wheels, airbags and clocksprings are handled compliantly. Steering and controls sit here as a planning area; the safety detail belongs with the compliance reading.
Mirrors and vision
Your long body and rear barn doors make rear vision a real consideration. You'll work harder reversing and manoeuvring a long-wheelbase wagon than a shorter vehicle, more so when you've loaded it for touring with gear stacked behind the front seats. A reversing camera feeding the head unit is one of the most useful aids you can add, and most modern head units include a reversing camera input for exactly that.
Mirrors themselves are a regulated item: factory rear vision mirror requirements still apply, and a reversing camera supplements them rather than replacing them. If you tow, or carry a load that blocks the rear glass, that changes which rear vision aids suit you. The ADR Compliance hub covers the standards and how a camera display interacts with the factory mirror requirements.
Interior and integration
Interior upgrades on a Troopy split into two zones, because the rear gets re-purposed so often. Your front cabin holds the head unit, steering controls, switch panels and audio, and it's common 70 Series, so off-the-shelf integration parts apply. The cargo area behind the front seats is build-specific, whether it carries the factory seating, a drawer system, a fridge or a sleeping platform. That's the zone where you plan amplifiers, accessory wiring and lighting separately from the dash.
To tidy up the front cabin and get the most from a head unit, browse the cameras, harnesses, interfaces and accessories that finish an install. Plan the wiring once, with the head unit, audio and accessory loads thought through together, and you avoid the rework that comes from adding things one at a time.
| Interior zone | What you'll fit there | What to plan for |
|---|---|---|
| Front cabin (common 70 Series) | Head unit, steering controls, audio, add-ons and harnesses | Standardised parts apply; plan head unit, audio and wiring together |
| Cargo area (build-specific) | Amplifiers, accessory wiring, drawers, fridge, lighting | Layout varies per build; route wiring to suit your seating and storage plan |
Build your Troopy in this order
- Head unit first. It sets the foundation for audio output, reversing camera input and phone integration, and the harness you run now serves what you add later.
- Front speaker door pods. The single biggest audio improvement on a three-door Troopy, driven cleanly by your new head unit.
- Reversing camera and vision aids. Cheap to add at head-unit time and genuinely useful on a long barn-door wagon.
- Lighting. Improved headlights for the long remote drives a Troopy is built for.
- Steering, amplifier and cargo-area integration. Build-specific items, added once you've sorted the front cabin.
Starting from a stock 78 Series, that's the sequence that stops you buying twice and keeps the wiring sane. If your variant or build year isn't obvious, or you're unsure whether a rear-door part suits your seating configuration, contact our team before you order and we'll confirm fitment for your Troop Carrier.
Related guides
For the compliance side of any of these upgrades, from head unit installation and displays through to steering wheels, lighting and mirrors, start with the ADR Compliance hub. To go straight to parts for a 78 Series Troop Carrier: head units and LandCruiser 70 Series head units for the dash, audio and car audio for speakers and door pods, 70 Series headlights for the front end, and head unit add-ons for the parts that finish an install.
Last updated: June 2026