fully caged ridin' FOX shocks; heres how she got there;) (my build)

So heres the story of my build and all the pics along the way. Her name is "yotabang3r" and she is a 2000 tacoma extended cab, v6, 4x4, 5speed, TRD, caged front to back(under construction right now), FOX 2.5" remote serevoir bypass shocks, BFG A/T 33x12.5" tires, american racing 15x10" rims, cold air intake, flow master dump, jensen GPS/DVD, 2 pioneer 12's with 1000watt amp and capacitor, and some other stuff that i forgot to list...

heres a pic of my chick leaning on my truck when she was all stock about 2 months ago. all i had on it was a 2" leveling kit.



i totalled my last prerunner silverado last year, fixed it and sold it. i bought this tacoma and left it stock for about 6 months until i was ready to do everything at once.

first mod i did was remove the front bumper and cut the frame down. when making the cuts i appropriated the angle to allow me to weld the length of the square tubing bumper mount to the frame, rather than just the 1 3/4" square end. doing this allowed me to apply about 12" of bead to attatch the bumper mount to the frame(on each side), instead of welding the end of the pipe to the frame and only having about 4 inches of weld holding it on.



a couple days after building the bumper, i recieved the 15x10" american racing rims i ordered on Amazon for $458. so i went and bought some BFG A/
t tires (33x12.5) for about $900



once i built the basic skeleton of the bumper and everything was nice, straight, semetrical, and perfect on either side, i cut out a diamond plate sheetmetal skid plate and bought some cheep lights at walmart just to fill the void in the lighting area



next i wired the lights and painted it with some Rustoleom "hammered steel" grey textured paint.



whoo hoo that was fun! next, meet our shop mascott. hes about 5 feet tall and his name is Emi. we chase him around the backyard when cutting bending and welding $h!t all day gets old.



couple days later i drew up this blueprint to give me an idea of how i was going to start my cage. i needed to make a back bumper to match the front and decided that the bed was the best place to start caging my truck.



so the following weekend i cut the bottom of the bed put to g ive me access to the frame and drilled the first 2 of 6 holes in the cab with a 2" hole saw bit. this allowed me to get the angle i needed to run the top 2 steel tubes into the cab, clearing the inch thinck headliner and the back window.



finally it rains here in vegas, so i take the truck mobbin for the first time in months. this hill was alot steeper then it looks, this pic does it zero justice



all mudded up.. yea thats what im talkin bout



so a couple days later im at work just looking online at stuff for the truck talking about how im on such a budget because i just bought a bunch of tools and steal and stuff, and i go and drop $1500 on 2 FOX 2.5" remote resevoir coilovers for the front of my truck. i pop the wheels off and slip the new shocks on, while also replacing all the sway bar bushings and stuff



BAM! these made the biggest difference in performance over any investment ive made so far. i used to be somewhat slow and cautious when entering a trail in my truck, now i just pull off into the dirt and floor it. i still have to do the back though because it doesnt keep up with the front at all.

this past weekend i ran out of steel so i only got a few more bars welded into place.



no gas for the welder either, so it was all done FCAW (flux core)

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and thats all ive got so far in the last 2 months. i work and go to school full time (for welding) so i only get to work on my truck every sunday. i will be wrapping up the bed cage this weekend and hopefully ordering a fuel cell, so ill be sure to post more pics of the progress by monday.

 

Nice truck.

 

was this your old silverado? my buddy recently got one from vegas

 

Subbed! The bed cage looks sweet, and I love deep dish rims

 

hahaaaa no but i wish it was! that ones clean. this is like the only picture i have of it. me and my girl took a surprise mothersday trip to see my mom up in oregon and this is the lake behind her house. alot of great memories in this truck i miss it sometimes... but then i get in my tacoma and i remember why i made the decision i did

 

thanx man i got the rims off Amazon for $450, and im still in the process of bulding the cage. did a little more work yesterday but ran out of daylight

 

got a late start yesterday, but got a little more tubing welded in the cage. also did the grey wire mod and had a blast!



also plated a couple of corners for strenth, here a foot long bead so you guys can check out my flux core game. no gas and yet there isnt any splatter