Finally! TacoVio's '00 Taco Build N' Stuff!

I'll relocate this convo to not bs in the other thread.

I moved out to Idaho for work and I miss Laramie/Snowies at times. I'll be out there in November to help my girlfriend move to Idaho. Funny you're from Pueblo as well. I lived in Canon City for a bit when I was younger and remember driving to Pueblo often.

I think @Speedytech7 is in Laramie now. A few guys ended up down there since I left in May. My gf sent me a picture of a silver 1st gen with an arb front bumper and a tan softopper. She talked to him a bit and said he was on the forums. Find that dude haha.

 

Damn small world lol. Let me know when you are down here. Funny she ran into that guy. He is actually the one i bought my bumper from! His name is Webster and i actually have a class with him and im goin to lunch with him tomorrow. Sorry for the life story lol. Didnt know he was on here though

 

My old rig is floating around Cheyenne now with an air force guy. If you see it send me a photo so I know it's still in good shape!

 

Really? Will do!! Id like to find it one day

 

You and me both

 

Sucks you had to part with it but shit comes up and vehicles are just materialistic pieces. Hope you can build another rig in the future

 

Wow been inactive longer than I thought. Not much goin on. Just using the pile. Alot of maintenance planned for the summer. Photo Dump of the past summer.

 

Selling some neat stuff if any of you are interested.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2017-offroad-atv-rtt-trailer-1500-obo.651575/

 

Yooo been awhile since I've updated this thread...per usual. Just been wheelin the pile and putting a lot of highway miles on driving to school and such. Sold the RTT and my trailer since I am a broke ass college kid, but only for another two months. Lookin to get into another RTT this summer that's not so damn bright colored. Also have another pile that's been devouring my money...lets do a pic dump eh?

Starting off with some pics from this past shitshow of a year. COVID








My brother managed to crack his tranny on the way down from t-33A Plane Crash.



Runnin MSV/Coney Flats here.



My buddy in this red 92 pickup bent his steering all to hell, truck is now SAS'd and Chevy 63's outback, along with a flatbed that inspired me...





Here is the one and only @Zac1112 breakin in some new armor and tires.




And here be the new money pit. 2003 Ford F250 7.3l Powerstroke with 136k miles when I bought it. Completely stock other than airbags out back. Grandpa mobile.




More recent picture of it as the new tow pig. 5% Tint, Leveled 2.5", 35x12.5R20 Ridge Grapplers on 20x10 Raceline Clutches. Typical mods like intake, exhaust, custom tunes, then some random mods like 6.0l powerstroke trans cooler with bypass line delete, KC Compressor wheel to fix the turbo surge. Planning to dump some money into it (Turbo, injectors, regulated fuel return, piping, trans, filtration etc.) once I graduate to keep up with the newer diesels hp/torque output. That'll tame me from buying a 6.7 Powerstroke hopefully.

 

Now is where things get interesting. Me and my brother were elk hunting this past November. We get up one morning and it snowed an inch or two. Coming down the forest service road is a steepish grade that comes to a 45 degree left hand turn lets say. Well when driving a road you've driven countless times you become a bit cocky you know? Well, lesson time, I turned left and the truck had other plans. Sent it right into the ditch and mushed/hit a patch of aspens...Now the damage wasn't as bad as one might think. Folded my bumper into my hood and fender leaving a nice uniform dent across both. Also took a headlight and corner light with it. My bed would have been taco'd pretty good had it not been for the bed rack. Flaked some paint off pretty good.









From there I tore the front clip apart, welded new frame side bumper mounts with 3/8 plate and also reinforced the bumper mounts them selves with 1/4" plate so it doesn't bend so easy if I ever decided to send it into some trees or the occasional rock again. Painted the bumper with a semi gloss. Pushed the rigid pods outside the pocket a bit, tore apart the winch and regreased it. New grille, headlights, corner lights.Fixed and organized some wiring and she is brand new. Also relocated my winch control box between the grille and core support with some bent 1/8" flat stock. The rear is a whole different story...

 

So the bed was in pretty bad shape before this, multiple collisions with trail obstacles, a dent above the passenger taillight when I bought it, someone hit and run the other taillight/mount, and the corners of the bed up front were tearing from the toolbox I had tied down up front. Also my previous rear shock relocation mounts were bullshit and had some booger lookin shitty welds with both POS Fox 2.0's blown out partly because I cut the exhaust all wonky and melted some seals... So previously my buddy with the red 92 pickup had finished SASing his truck, chevy 63's and the sweet flatbed he built...this got me thinking. So I decide to go all in on a one off flatbed built by yours truly and help from multiple other parties with payment of Colorado Koolaid and maybe some Crown Vanilla if you know what I mean. Ill have to post some pics of my buddies 92 Pickup now, things wicked. Along with the flatbed I cut the frame a bit to shorten overall length about 6". Also opted to box the frame. So I got all the old bullshit off and tacked up the frame plates.


Then the plates were welded in and the new upper mount were constructed and welded in...Best apart about scrapping old shocks...custom tuned 10" Kings with reservoirs. Opted for the straight fitting and nonwelded rod end since those add-ons were a 3-4 month wait. Sheeesh!!! Oh well. @Downsouth Motorsports hooked it up good and these bad boys were at my door step in less than a week. You get a glimpse of the ol flatbed in the third pic...




Finally the flatbed!! I had a lot of ideas in my head and finally settled and began building. What a beotch it was, but it came out really good. Fender openings are 35"+ to accomadate future meats hopefully! The most difficult part was contouring the headache rack to the truck back glass...thankfully my almost engineer brain was good at trig...Filler neck was a shit head as I had to completely cut apart the old filler neck and figure my own way to keep the breather and what not but it turned out better than expected thanks to my buddy Kyler with the 92 Pickup. Educated does not always equal fabrication educated...learned alot from this project. Heres the skeleton of the bed





After getting it all welded up the final step was to plate it! I never learned autocad or solid works or anything but another one of my buddies drew the rear skirt up and the tailight sections and we used a press brake to bend it to shape. Same with the sides up by the cab. Welded some hilift mounts on along with a total of 8 tie downs and of course the sweet UWS Wedge chest, 36" if anyone is wondering. Don't mind the rust...I have yet to decide if I want to powdercoat or just raptorline it also gonna POR-15 the rear frame etc. Gonna add some tabs on the top for bed lights/chase lights as well as a third mount in the middle for a ham/gmrs in the future, plus a chainsaw mount above the hilift next to the toolbox. Gonna build a bed rack for it probably this spring and figure a good way to secure it. maybe a tire mount that utilizes the receiver hitch not sure yet. Hope yall enjoyed this short storytime! More to come and hopefully more occasionally than a years time

 

I thought about matching the color but I liked the idea of semi gloss black powdercoat. Powdercoat is tough too. But I may end up just raptorlining it. Its rusted in the mean time from driving up here on WYO roads. Gonna get some quotes for powder coat next week in Northern Colorado

 

it would be pretty wicked...

 

I like it quite a bit! Also - you've clearly been hanging around Laramie too long now. What's next, gonna throw a welder in the back?!

 

Yo dont tempt me...just picked up my grandpas old lincoln g8000 a couple months ago

 

Any ideas on how you'll mount the tent now?

 

Gonna build a bed rack for it. Plan to use some 3 inch angle at each of the four feet. So it will be set on the edge of the bed in the back and then the front two legs most likely on the fenders. Then I think just use turnbuckles from some hooks on the rack to the bed tiedowns. The sled decks you see on trucks around here are the same concept and they hold two 400+ pound sleds just fine so I figure a 200lb tent will be fine. Thats the plan anyways!