What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Sounds good

Thinking of making one in 10 gauge and maybe have the bracing go farther along the bottom. Unsure if it'll be considered strong enough though.

I don't have a Tacoma.

 

a better test candidate would be someone with a bed that doesn't look like a 20 yr old tuna can

 

The hopes and dreams that hold that bed together just need a little extra support

 

Haters can't tell me I didn't use my truck


Yeahhhh I plan to cap the bed rails with angle iron and tie that into the bed floor in the corners... Someday

 

What about the back side behind the tail light? When I built mine out of angle iron I also used so scrap 1/8" thick plate to put on the back side to distribute the load and prevent the thin sheet metal from pulling away with the stiffener. I'm sure some fender washers would do the same trick.

 

would some kind of metal plate, bar under the bed be a good idea?

 

Yes, I would recommend adding angle iron across the bottom to tie both sides together

That's a good call out, the metal is 2 or 3 layers there but adding more material on the backside would up the rigidity

 

i feel like you would have to have some serious weight on the bedsides to have the sheet metal pull away from a brace like that.
If you fender washers, that should be good enough for supporting the load back there

 

That's a great idea; I can just cut some out and pre-drill them if someone wants to opt for that.

Guess the real question is, is the area behind the light housing flat? Or would this only be for the bottom?

 

is the bottom of the bed open to the backside of the tail lights? I don’t remember

 

I don't have a Tacoma to say.

Maybe if you get bored one day you could check yours out?

Large washers would help as mentioned. I just thought it was a great idea to add a support plate, and see what type of clearance is needed for said plate.

 

It's not entirely flat, I will have to take measurements and pics -- the bottom hole on the vertical support needs to move a little bit

 

Forgot to mention, don't paint the set you've got.

Final revisions (holes in the same place since you already drilled yours) will be applied to the set I send you once you've given me your thoughts and opinions.

 

I'm waiting for a set that uses super magnets so I don't have to drill

Cool, that sounds good to me

 

Yes, or fender washers too. It may be over kill but I figured you do it once and not have to worry about it.

My concern was that it's not a lot of contact area for the hardware and it would be a bigger headache of the sheet metal started to pull way. Not sure if it is a real issue but might as well make it a non-issue. At the time I had a 100# tire hanging off a tire gate so I had a lot more concern of the material pulling away.

If you have a RTT with a rack it can push the bedsides out over time on rough roads. Peace of mind for me was ensuring that it stayed rigid, not to mention it doesn't take much time or material to add it. I also at one time had a tire gate that was hanging off the back that put a LOT of force on the corner of the bed.

It's flat enough. I didn't mention it but I did the same thing on the bottomed side of the bed.

 

I was wondering how this was going to work out, looks awesome.

 

Front end of the bed needs to be reinforced as well if you're carrying weight on the rails and bouncing around in dirt a lot.

 

please elaborate where reinforcements are needed.

 

So what are the fender skirts that don't suck, I need a full set. I can't keep up, one brand cracks to shit within a year but I forgot which.

 

Ok, sheesh, I’ll check it out tomorrow sheesh!