My 1999 Taco TuRD Build - I sold it

Wow! That’s great! We can help you move if you want. Jonny and I have been working on the F250 the last month and it’s almost all done. Just needs tires and alignment. Can move a bunch of stuff in one shot with that truck.

 

Awesome! Whatever help you guys can give will be appreciated.

 

We’d be happy to. Just let us know when you are ready.

 

Decided that it was time to redo the tire carrier. I wasn't happy with the Coastal designed one. It's not a bad design by any mean and I like the use of the large heim joints but I couldn't for the life of me get it to stop pulling away from the tail gate nor could I get the latch mechanism working well enough for me to trust it.

You can see in this shot that I was using a piece of strap that I cut, to secure the latch closed. This was a pain since I had to untie and re-tie it every time I wanted to open the tail gate. But it worked and the carrier never swung open unexpectedly.



This shot, from when I had just finished building the bumper and carrier, shows how the carrier would constantly lean away from the tailgate, especially when the tire was mounted on it. I could never adjust that lean out of it, regardless of what I tried.



So I gathered the parts that I wanted to use to remake the tire carrier, hopefully making it more secure and resistant to leaning away from the tailgate so far.

The first part was to get rid of the heim joint hinge. I opted to go with the 4xInnovations hinge assembly. It's still a double shear design but uses 2" roller bearings with seals and a 3/4" grade 8 bolt for the hinge pin.

The latch assembly is also from 4xInnovations.

I unbolted the old carrier and removed it and then cut off the hinge brackets. I'm re-using the uprights from the old carrier since there is nothing wrong with those.





I'm switching the main support beam from a 2x4 tube to a 2x3 .120 wall tube. Should be more than strong enough. Tacked the hing body to the tube and setup the hinge mount on the bumper.









After thinking about how to mount the latch, I decided to cut the pad off the bumper that supported the old carrier at the far end.





I decided that the latch pin for the new latch would have to be mounted into the bumper since there is hardly any room between the tailgate and the bumper when the tailgate is down. So I cut a new hole and started welding shit together again.







Once that was all welded up, I got the latch figured out but didn't take pics until I was done. Oops. It didn't really work out the way I wanted, the latch hangs pretty low. But it's solid and won't come undone by itself.













I still might cut it all apart and start over again since I have another 5' of 2x3 tube to play with. But I'll leave it as is for now and get the uprights moved over tomorrow.

 

What's preventing you from moving the whole thing closer to the tailgate?

 

The way the bumper corners are angled. I suppose I could by welding up an angled piece at the hinge end to sort of wrap around the corner. I thought of that but it would be a lot more fab work and extra weight to make sure it was strong enough. Sort of like this: ----------\__

The only other way would be to chop the corner up and sort of french the hing into it. Again, a lot more work than I really want to do. The main support beam is as close as I can get it right now and actually allows me to put shit between the tail gate and the carrier.

The problem with the old one with the heims is it was leaning away from the tailgate and not remaining vertical the way it was supposed to. This pic makes it a little more obvious maybe.

 

Sweet rig

 

I have the same hinge and it has worked great for the last two years.

 

I love the hinge and the latch. I'm just not overly pleased where the latch ended up in my case. I'll leave it for a while and see if it grows on me.

 

Finished up the new carrier this morning. It's much stronger and more stable than the previous version. This one will not lean away from the tailgate. Just needs painting now.









This is why I couldn't mount the latch any higher than I have it. The tailgate open just about rests on the bumper. My license plate frame actually does.





Rock solid with the tire on there now.



And the tire is angled towards the bed like originally designed.





Overall, I happy with it. I might change it again later but I'm in no rush. I'll see how it fares over this next wheeling season before making any further changes.

 

Painted and re-mounted. Won't be coming off again for a while. I hope.

 

Swing out came out great dude! Solid work.

 

Thanks! I'm still not super happy with the latch hanging down like that but taking a flap wheel to it helped some. Managed to reduce the profile a little bit.

 

You ever install your coil bucket gussets?

 

No, not yet. I got tired of the truck having so much downtime and then I moved. Still have all the parts sitting to rebuild the front suspension. SPC UCAs, Whiteline LCA bushings, LBJs, so on and so forth...

 

So sounds like you might be right behind me on this project. I am hoping my LCA bushings are still good though. They look like they are so as long as the cams aren't seized I will just be taking them off for some gussets and thats it.

 

Yeah, I'm not in a rush to start the work, especially with prime wheeling season starting.

 

Man, stop beatin yourself, you do damn nice work, we all screw up with jumping the gun, it’s part of life’s lessons. I think you have done a jam up job brother keep it up, you inspire all of us, I’ve read nothing else up to this point. I’m an ol fart at 60, u have inspired me, nice job man!

 

Thanks for the feedback guys! Glad y'all like it!

Haven't been up to much with the truck lately. Busy with work, funds are tight and life and all. I have installed new headlights and corner markers to fix the original, faded ones as well as installed 01-04 fender flares which give much better coverage over the tires. Should help reduce the amount of mud fling nicely.

Old headlights and side markers. The passenger side marker would occasionally fall out since the tab on the headlight was broken.



The side markers were really faded in the orange part.



New headlights and markers.



Much better. Headlights are a little brighter now too. Still getting the aim dialed in but I got them pretty close.



New (old) fender flares installed.

 

How did you mount the 01-04 flares? I've been keeping my eyes out for a set to get better coverage of my wheels as well. They look great and seem to fit well!

I was thinking of using some kind of adhesive rather than drill holes in my fenders for the OEM mounts.