Reg. Cab Tacoma with bed bobbed to 5.1' + tonneau cover - possible?

Or, rent a storage unit for all of the crap in the garage.. or build overhead shelving that you can back the rear of the truck underneath...

Buy a different truck. You aren't going to be bobbing the truck yourself.. since you obviously don't have a garage with enough room to work in, this means you will spend $5,000+ dollars to pay someone else to cut up a brand new rig.

Get an FJC or somethign else instead.

 

Bad idea, don't hack the truck. It's a regular cab, i'm sure there is something you can do to make it fit.

 

You can also consider buying a Ford Sportrac and put emblems on it and try to pass it off as a Tacoma.

 

honestly, smart car or a miata would be your best bet...

bobbing a regular cab just to fit in your garage is kinda hella overkill...like if you go offroading ONCE a year on a dirt road and decide to SAS....

 

buy a 5' bed and swap them......if the whell wells line up w the wheels.

 

The problem with my garage is structural, not about getting rid of junk stuff - I know it sounds odd, but it was just built that way....the Tacoma would be parked next to my other vehicle and a inch or two from the limiting wall.
I appreciate your wisdom about not cutting up a new truck, guys, so some further details about my situation are in order. A member of my family has basically inherited this truck and they'll transfer it to me for close to nothing, provided I let my youngest brother use it as a daily driver for a couple of years until he finishes school. He doesn't need the long bed, however he does need a tonneau cover to use the bed as a trunk, hence my wanting to come up with short bed dimensions that will fit a tonneau cover. After that, in a couple of years, my plan would be to modify the truck anyway for off-roading, which usually includes cutting the long bed somehow anyway to improve departure angles....

I didn't take into account the fact that the 2010 Tacoma has a composite plastic bed...pretty hard to deal with that. But I suppose swapping a short bed from a donor truck would be out of the question because of the different mount points, right? Or not? How difficult would be moving the rear axle forward to accommodate a short bed, if mount points are not a problem and provided it is a simple job not involving the moving around of stuff such as the tank, etc, as an earlier poster indicated might be necessary? I have found out that before the introduction of the composite plastic bed model many reg cab Tacomas were and are being bobbed even up to 14" by off-roaders.... So it seems to me the problem here is more about dealing with the composite plastic bed than anything else.

 

well as far as getting a short bed and moving the axle up... your gonna run into several problems. probably the biggest is the gas tank.. it would have to be modified or fun a fuel cell as it will be in the way, second you'll have to put on new spring mounts, new driveshaft, and possibly modify the frame in some way to keep the geometry of the spring mounts correct. (not sure on the last part, just depends on how the frame is)

as far as guys bobbing the older trucks, they were taking it all off the rear of the bed, so nothing as far as wheel openings were effected, but with the composite bed you would have to come up with a way to put it back together after you cut a section out of it. the fenders as still sheet metal so they could be chopped and welded back together. also you would have to contend with the plastic bed cap thingies these trucks have, or ditch it all together.......

 

You're thinking about this wrong. You're trying to match the bed length to existing tonneau cover lengths. BUT - the amount of fabbing you're going to need to do to change the length of the truck itself absolutely DWARFS the amount of fabbing required to make up a custom length tonneau cover!

 

Is this DIY? Are you good at welding, filling and painting? I'd never tell someone not to take on a cool project that they thought was going to be fun, as long as they were going into it eyes open. But where are you going to do the work since you can't do it in your garage?

But really, if it's not DIY, really it's just absolutely NUTS to think about PAYING someone to do this. I don't care that you're getting it free. Sell the Taco, buy a car that 'lil bro can use till he's out of school, then sell that and buy a trail rig.

 

The solution is simple. Get a short bed from a junk yard. Then take the truck to a limo shop where they put it on their jig and shorten the frame, drive shaft, wiring, and everything else by one foot or so. Once complete you have a regular cab short bed for about half again the cost of a regular cab long bed.

 

Take off the bed and shorten the end of the frame and put on a flat bed with some kind of box for storage.

 

LOL. Yep, that's about the size of it.

 

This might be the most practical suggestion yet. A hardwood flatbed could look really sweet, and would be much easier than trying to bob off the end of the existing bed in a way that looks decent.

 

Sorry, but hacking up a nearly new truck just seems like such a waste. Trade the truck for a car that fits. Let your brother use the small car to get thru college. When he's done, sell the small car and use the other money from the 2010 Tacoma to buy another truck.

I would also consider moving to somewhere that can accomodate a regular size vehicle.

If you cut up the truck, you end up with something that is custom and hard to ever sell to anyone else. Plus you don't really know how it will turn out.

If you take the money and effort and put it into the garage, you could end up increasing the value of your house and make it more attractive since it would accomodate a regular size car.

 

If you only need 8 inches, why not remove the rear bumper and fab a roll pan.
If you still need a bit more space remove the front plastic bumper cover and get a custom made tube bumper that does not extend as much as the plastic bumper cover.

 

You can "weld" plastic. Its called a plastic welder. I just melts the plastic together. But make sure you have a perfectly flush fit between the two surfaces that you want to weld.

 

More good thinking here.

Unless you're limited by street-setback-distance restrictions, adding a foot to the length of your garage is probably less work than taking a foot off the length of your Tacoma.

 

I would try this first. You could probably free up enough space by modifying the bumpers..

 

Thanks for your combined wisdom guys. The bed swap implies too much work that I'm not willing to undertake....it seems nightmarish to me.
Can't sell the Tacoma....it's got to stay in the family at least for a while or it would be perceived as disrespectful. It was the joy and pride of the departed one.
This would look interesting if it could be done simply with no need for specialized skills/expensive tools:

and provided the bed could be cut 12" without much suspension stuff sticking out, which is very unlikely I think (haven't had the chance to measure yet), or at least 8" and then getting a custom made tonneau cover for it. However, I do agree now after hearing what was said and thinking of it, it would indeed be a shame to maim a new truck that way....

I'm considering selling my current (old) vehicle, replacing it with one that will fit in the short garage space and parking the Tacoma without modifying its length where my current drive is parked now.
Thanks again for your input everyone....very helpful!