Flatbed MkII, off-road mods and BS

Haha wtf. I dunno on price yet. Who knows. An 05 single cab 4x4 70k miles just sold in California for 12k.

I will be on a work holiday permit for two years with a sponsor, then after two years I can become a citizen and renounce my citizenship from here.

I will be doing guided safari hunts for Asiatic water buffalo in arnhem land the first year, the second year i will oversee purchase of a helicoter, and i will be doing resupply mission for numerous fly camps, two on arnhem land, and more on larger stations further south.

Landing in Sydney, taking a little plan to Albury, getting in Mack road train rated for 300 tons loaded with equipment and headed to set up camp and start the season.

 

Subd for build thread
Have fun with those hiluxes n cruisers

 

Actually a hilux is considered a town truck down there, and taking one a long way out in the bush is very frowned upon. no one would ever dream of taking one out in the bush as far as our camp. It's only the very dependable, pre common rail land cruiser 60 79 ute or 80, and nissan patrol gu if you just want a good dirt road truck, and patrol gq if you want a good offroad truck. Both have td 4.2 engines.

 

Really? So the new hiluxs aren't as durable and reliable? That's sad news

 

New hilux, new land cruiser...only townies and sponsored guys have the common rails. No one trusts them at all.

 

That's sad. Toyota really is losing their edge.

 

Sub's for flatbed greatness. And maybe heli pics.

 

Shit I got heli pics

Dropping wood chips west of ft collins 2014

Pre season elk count in Estes Park


Western Power powerline upgrade south of Laramie Wyoming. This thing handles like a dream in high winds. The silver astar in background is also a beast. Took the turbomecca out and put in a Lycoming LTS 101 with hp fuel mods and a b3 tail rotor upgrade.

 

That one on the bottom looks like the one they use to clear the power lines around here

 

Looks the same, but it's actually its big brother. Md500 is usually the power line clearing machine. What you see there is a md600n, about 300 more HP, 6 blade main rotor instead of 5, and lifts about 1300 lbs more

 

So the first step was switch the old bed from my truck to my buddies


Blank slate

 

Ok so here are the cross frame pieces. The back gets narrow, that's why the back is an angled cut, for support.


All hardware is stainless steel. Bed mount to original bed mounts

 

cutting the 7 foot long main frame pieces, these are 2x4 16 ga. These two and the rear cross brace are the only 2x4 pieces used in the whole set up. The front cross piece is a 2x3. This angles the bed slightly towards so while you drive, stuff will vibrate towards the headache rack instead of away from it.


Setting the rails on there, just trying to visualize an ATV on there, and where the main weight would be

 

welding them up.

these are one every foot, 1x1 1/8 ga for strength. I kind of skipped a lot of steps here. All I did was put the 2x3 around the outer circumference, and weld the plate on

 

Just cut some plate for the lights to sit on. Flipped the bed over to weld everything up. You can see in this pic how much narrower the back of the truck frame is than the front. That's all i got for now.

 

Rear view of bar work


The bottom of the bars are left open to drain water, because there will be holes drilled in the bar for wiring, and it will eventually get water in it.


The inner radius of both bends with be plated with diamondplate, and a LED flood pattern worklight installed on both sides.

 

Proper side view to judge the length

 

Do you have any idea on the weight of the new bed? Or an estimate of how many feet of rectangle tubing you used? I can estimate the weight from there. Not sure if I’ll use diamond plate for the decking or not

 

Less than 300, two full size grown men can lift it off. I can tell a huge difference from my old bed. I can finally get back to 80 mph on interstate. It's back to normal now.

 

I like the 70's series truck