My 1999 Taco TuRD Build - I sold it

Mine has the same bend, but not quite as bad as yours. Made mounting my bumper a pain.

 

Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to have the same issue when it comes to it. I really think it's from a tow truck driver or something that used that point to secure the truck but cranked down too hard. The rear frame horn on the passenger side is also bent on my truck. Bottom of the U with the big hole in it for access to the bed bolt. Going to have to straighten that out to mount the rear bumper when I get to it.

 

That makes since, I was wondering how the frame could get bent in that direction.

 

My last truck had the factory tow hook still in place, nailed it right into a rock which bent my frame identical to yours.

Loving the truck, looks clean and well thought out!

 

Spent the last few days building an actual rack for the truck. Reused the 1.75" bars that I had clamped to the bed rails and lifted them up about 9" or so. Top of the tubes where the tent sits is at 9 7/8" from the top of the bed rail now. The kickers are angled at about 37 degrees to match the side of the cab angle. Thought about adding a couple cross bars but they would only be for looks and the rack is more than strong enough as it sits. I decided I didn't need the additional weight of the cross bars.

For reference, here is the original setup I whipped together so I could pick up my tent.



It worked very well but limited the height of items in the bed, making it difficult to fit my cooler and such. You can see the height difference from mine to @Ace115 setup here. The new rack is about the same height as his now.



I started off by measuring things from the front (cab side) of the bed and based all measurements from there.

The base of the rack is 1.5" x 1.5" 10ga angle iron. The legs are 1" x 2" 14ga rectangular tube. The main bars that I reused are 1.75" round HREW .120 wall. All the flat plates used for reinforcement and to cap the tubes are 3/16" thick.

Once I had the measurements to locate the cross bars, keeping them in the same location as previously. I cut the angle iron to length and drilled all the holes to bolt them to the bed. Then I was able to start figuring out the legs. I used an angle finder to match the angle of the cab sides and cut the legs to length accordingly. I then used a 1.75" hole saw to make the cuts in the legs for the cross bars. Then I got the legs centered on the angle iron and tacked them in place.











Next was the cross bars. I cut the top corners off the holes in the legs to make getting the bars into place easier. This later allowed me to hammer those end over, onto the bars, making a much better fit and looked better too.



Didn't take any more pictures until I was done and ready for paint but here is the end result before painting.



Primered with Krylon galvanizing primer (probably won't use that again, goes on thick and runs very easily, but dries quick) and then painted with Krylon spray bedliner. Giving it a try over the Herculiner spray that I have been using. Dries much faster.

 

Very nice

 

It'll work!

 

So, I got tired of waiting for the paint to dry, it was dry enough to handle, mostly.

 

Rack looks great! Have you put the tent up on it yet?

When you get into the tent you may feel some movement due to those uprights not being tied together. If so, you could easily do what I did with the removable bars and the tube clamps from Ballistic Fab.

Looks great from the pics though.

 

Not yet, I just put the rack on the bed last night. I'll get the tent up there this weekend and start getting it all sorted out. If there is movement, I'll just weld cross bars in, I have all the steel for it.

 

Tent is on the rack and the rack is solid, no movement when I'm inside.

Put the foam mattress back in, had it out after the last trip so it could air out and dry. The corners were a little wet from the rain and snow. Put down a 2" memory foam topper first with the original hard foam mattress on top of that. Decided I liked that the best after trying it out on the floor in the house. The original foam by itself was too hard and gave me sore spots in the morning. With the big Tepui sleeping bag in there, it's harder to close but it does close and zip up nicely still. Don't think I can leave my pillows in there tho.

The best part is I have a ton of room under the rack with about 23.5" of clearance from the floor of the bed to the bottom of the rack.





I also installed the 4xInnovations transmission skid plate. 1/4" thick, just like the IFS skid plate. I did have to trim about 1" off each of the large crossmember bolts that they provided since they come extra long and the passenger side was interfering with the catalytic converter. Driver side was fine but still extra long. I'll probably fabricate a tcase skid later, have to give it a little thought since the tcase hangs just slightly lower at the lowest point than the transmission crossmember.

 

Sounds good. I’ll be in town this weekend. Let me know if you want a hand with the tent.

 

See my last post, it's already on

 

Sorry I didn’t see that post. Fit and finish look really good.

 

More work done on the truck and more underway.

Received my CBI Fab rear frame plates and installed the passenger side today. I'll get the driver side tome tomorrow. My welding seems to be getting a little better too. Still needs work but it's progress and I'm not worried about the welds failing.























Then I installed 2 new cinch straps on my RTT to make it easier to close it down enough for the cover to zip. I've added a 2" thick memory foam topper to the original foam mattress and leave my Tepui sleeping bag in the tent too so I was having to climb on the rack and sit on a corner to squish it down enough to get the velcro straps attached. And I didn't trust them to hold. I went with red straps because I was always forgetting to undo the velcro straps and trying to open the tent. Eventually, I would have broken the ladder doing that shit. Red stands out so hopefully I won't forget anymore.

The straps are riveted in the original location after cutting off the old straps and drilling out the rivet that held them. I sandwiched a 1" x 2" x 1/8" thick piece of aluminum between the strap to hopefully make everything a little stronger. All that is held in place with 2 long rivets now and I added 2 more rivets to the outsides of the new strap for additional strength to the area. hopefully it holds well. If it eventually fails, then I might try using nutserts instead with actual bolts and a longer piece of aluminum.

 

Driver's side frame plate is now installed.

 

Truck is looking good!

I thought for sure I was subbed to your build, but I am now for sure.

 

Thanks man, it's coming together.

 

Trying to fix as best as possible the fubar passenger side frame horn. This is what I'm working with.



The plan is to reinforce both frame horns at the bottom where the recovery point mounting holes are with 1/4" plate that I cut to about 14" long. Going to weld those to the bottom of the frame. This will hopefully give me a more solid and hopefully flatter mounting surface for the new bumper. It's a DIY weld up bumper which should allow me to make adjustments for the additional plate.

Primed the bottom of the 2 plates in hopes that it will help prevent corrosion. Not weld thru primer but it's better than nothing. I hope.

 

@xtremewlr I hope you have that hi-lift locked down with some kinda anti theft device. It's sad, but assholes love to walk by trucks with shit in the bed, and walk away with it when possible.