My 2006 "Adventure Tacoma" build...

Hello all, been reading here on TW for some time just waiting to get a Tacoma of my own. Finally got one at the right price and got right to it. Some history on the truck. It's a 2006 Tacoma DCLB 4x4 Sport pkg. Already had a Revtek spacer lift installed. One of my main uses for this truck is to take a few friends on long road trips to go camping/fishing/exploring. So I wanted to make a bed rack to accommodate my roof top tent. I came up with a drawing on Gimp with help from a side view pic of Kenny650s' tacoma since I didn't have my truck yet at the time, (hope that's ok). I added the things I want on the truck: Demello bumper, custom bed rack, Rtt, and a wind fairing to help me think it'll help with mpg. Here's the goal: This is not a truck of mine, just a photoshop image.

So first things first, this is a pic of the ad I found of the truck since I didn't take a decent pic of when I first bought it.

I guess the first mod I did was removed the checkered go fast decals. Looks much cleaner.
The start of the bed rack. Went to the local steel place to get my estimated materials. 50' of .120 wall 1 3/4" tubing and 20' of 3x3" angle steel.

First step, make the base. Cutting the angle steel in half, I measured how long the verticle portion will be and cut where the bed isn't straight with a plasma cutter.

Then marked and cut the shape of the bed rails for a clean look.


The side bed storage pockets contacted the base material just a hair, so I notched the base to clear.

The base is bolted down utilizing the torx bolts that hold the tie down rails. The rails will not be sacrificed, simply bolt them over the base.
I have a pro tools 105 bender at work and got permission to mount it on the alignment rack. Making the first bend. (Sorry, all pics taken with a pre- smartphone camera)
Being a rookie to the bender, when it came for the second bend for the front/main hoop, we bent the tube in the wrong spot. Should have inserted the tube the other way To minimize the waste of material, I decided to just cut the first bend at the half way point in the middle and simply make a duplicate bend and weld them together. My coworker brought by his TIG welder to stitch it together.



After checking the fitment and level of the main hoop, we made a plate for the legs of the hoop and welded them on. Placed it on the base and drilled holes through both the plate and base. Then welding nuts on the underside of the base to be able to quickly bolt the rack on without having to fight the base and remove the rails.

 

Since the bender was already setup, I made the bends for the rear hoops to get ready to cut and weld on.

After holding the rear hoops up to mark for the correct height, I used my harbor freight protractor/angle tool to mark my leg to cut parallel to the base.

Its good to have a coworker who fabricated turbo kits prior to working here with me. He happened to have a tube notcher and portaband saw lying around at the house.

Made base plates for the legs and drilled them ready to be bolted in. One rear hoop tacked in place.


And both in place.


This pic appears the rack is getting taller towards the rear, but I assure you, its an illusion.
Once the rear hoops were tacked in place, it was time for cross bars. The steel place ended up giving us one 10' section that was just larger than the rest and luckily it worked out perfect for the job.



After all was confident it was square, we tacked it up and took it off for complete welding.





Almost finished!


I decided I wanted additional tiedown locations so I used a hole saw on flat plate and cut to fit the corners and welded them in.

 

This rack is awesome man. Did you just start it?

 

Mmmm, that's nice
Great work, man!

 

Nice fab work and welds bro!

 

Looking awesome so far! Kudos, Sir.

 

I was thinking of other things I could possibly want on the rack before I gave it a final paint/liner finish. So I then thought about a place to mount lights.
Found the perfect steel channel at home depot for under $10 and started cutting. Ended up making a total of eight tabs.

Used a belt sander to shape the tab to fit the tubing nicer.

I decided to locate four tabs on the front main hoop and two tabs on each rear hoops.



I have four HID offroad lights on order through my dealership and will mount on the front tabs. I plan to drill just behind the tabs for hidden wire routing through the hoop.
Got bored looking and researching for the best finish for the rack and decided the rack needed some handles in the back.
Started with a 3/4" tube I also found at home depot. My coworker also had a small woodward fab tube bender lying around and made a bend to see how it would look.

Tack welded and turned out better than I had expected.


Welded them both in place and smoothed out to prevent any chance of injury.

Used part of my tax return to buy a Demello bumper.I really like the look of the three hoop version so in an effort to save money I ordered it without a coating and no hoops.

This thing is beefy and fit perfectly without a fight. Didn't install the other brackets in order to save the hassle of taking it all off to paint it once the hoops are done.
Bent some of the remaining tubing for the center hoop of the bumper.

Tacked in place.

The center hoop sticks out further than the pictures I have seen, but I like the look.

Next was the outer hoops. Bent and cut to fit where I liked it.



And that's where the build is for the time being. The time it took to build the rack and bumper hoops was about two weeks time in our spare time. Luckily/unfortunately It was slow at work for the most part so I had alot of spare time the last two weeks.

 

that is awesome man! you are a master fabricator those welds are clean!

 

This is an impressive build. Max Kudos.

 

These are the best three posts I've ever seen

 

Thanks. Started it at the beginning of this month.

That is awesome.

Thanks for all the kind words, I hope to finish the outer hoops today. We'll see.

 

Where do you work?

 

i like it. good job

 

That rack is awesome man! looks really good! You should start selling these things, i bet a lot of guys would love to get this!!

 

judging by the uniforms, Honda.

Great work OP! looking forward to seeing the finished product.

 

Like it!

 

Excellent work! Keep 'em coming!

 

congrats on your new tacoma and can't wait to see this build progress. Nice work OP.

 

Just....WOW!

 

sytfu510 got it right. I work at a Honda dealership.