Lowered Taco? LETS SEE 'EM!

To anyone who has the DJM kit on a second gen with the c-notched frame. I've now cracked both frame rails and reinforcement plates. The frame is two years old. Fair warning, our frames can't handle missing the bottom structure piece. I'm now looking into having to tube frame the rear of my truck since I autocross it. Best of luck to you all.

 

I think driving it daily over rough roads in Maine did it in. The reinforcement plate split apart at the welds as well besides just cracking.

 

It's sitting on kyb excel-G shocks, and yes I have hauled two motorcycles (at separate times) as well as a washer-dryer. I certainly won't be putting anything back there besides my race tires from now on. I'm going to pull the bed off this coming weekend and weld the frame and try to make new reinforcement plates.

 

I'll post pictures once I get home to Internet.

 

Anyone still running the Roadmaster AS? I saw a couple people had them circa 2012 but I forgot to save the posts. I considered air bags but the thought of them at -60 is terrible.

 

Sorry it's not all clean, I had to drive it through the mill yard at work recently.

 

Fitted the Falken RT 660 295/40R18's today... took some effort. Here's before the fender got rolled. This is after we finished rolling it. I also had to take an impact rated adjustment tool (hammer) to the inner fenders to make it clear without touching while under load in a turn. No pics of that, but here's some more from the fitting process.

 

I can try, maybe at least see if they've improved their welds over the last two years...

Edit: I was not the installer of this kit. This was installed by the previous owner when the new frame was put in.

 

Maybe a boxing kit like this for the inside of the frame?
Obviously not exactly this, it’d have to be a custom fit panel to navigate the c-notch. Should improve the strength in that spot significantly, especially if you weld on the c-notch reinforcement plates instead of utilizing the bolts.

https://dmzfab.com/product/2005-tacoma-frame-boxing-kit/

 

Not yet, this coming weekend, Saturday to be exact. Life happens, exhaust falls off, amongst other things.

 

I'll let you know. Last time I pulled a truck bed it was four bolts, filler neck at the fender, and the taillight harnesses disconnected.

 

Nice! I just got one for my truck too! Let me know what all you use to install, the dealership told me it's just four bolts and the brace... I'm skeptical.

 

Ooh, any part numbers or source for those?

 

How much drop will I get if I take the middle leaf out my 2nd gen 5lug

 

So I started the bed removal process with the obvious, removing the six T55 bolts. Thankfully somebody prior to me put neverseize on them and they came right out.
After that was completed, taillights came out and wiring was pushed back through. Not pictured, I removed the filler neck cup from the bedside.
After that my roommate and I ate our Wheaties, and lifted the bed off. It's a bit tricky with two people as the bed wants to tipbackwards when lifting from the top of thewheel wells. (Tailgate was off for this too)
With all that said and done, we got to assessing the damage. Both sides of the frame cracked, and both support plates broken in half with welds pulled apart. I will say the welds looked very cold, with practically zero penetration.
After regrouping and analyzing, we cleaned up the frame, grooved the cracks, drilled the end of the cracks, and tig welded them closed with 308 stainless filler.
After that we hit the frame with etching primer and fresh black paint.

 

Then we ground down the reinforcement plates, and tig welded those back together as well. Hit them with the same primer and paint, then slapped it back on with new grade 8 hardware.
After that we tackled the wiring, which I posted the results of earlier. Here's a couple pictures of the mess, and one of where the wire was sandwiched to the frame.
Started this at 11:30 am, and here it is at 7 pm about to put the bed back on. I also put in an LED flasher relay to fix the hyper flash issue. And also put in the stock manually dimming rear view mirror.

Edit: I didn't get pictures but we also weldedthe exhaust back together and got that allinstalled with no leaks. (For now)

 

Looks solid now! Great job!
I want to pull my bed eventually for a couple of jobs, nice to know it's pretty much as simple as I thought

I was thinking some extra reinforcement around that c-notch would help, in theory at least. Though looking at the close up pictures the shoddy original welds failing most likely led to the stress fractures on the frame anyway, so now that they're properly done up it shouldn't be an issue.

 

I plan on doing a tube rear frame eventually because the goal is high horsepower, so I'm fine letting this do it's thing for the time being. I liked the suggestion of plating/partially boxing the frame, but the fact that I'm c-notched makes that rather difficult.

 

I didn't have a lot of choice actually, half of the old bolts snapped when I tried taking them out.