RST and Wyatt Builds another "Beast"

It's funny how pictures DO NOT show accuracy in hills, obstacles and such.
Awesome build...once again!

 

Yeah, pictures and video's just never do any justice to what is really out there. One of the guys that were on the trail with us said " Hey, this isn't what it's like on the video!!!" "It's much worse!" I just laughed.

 

Here are a couple of pictures that Big Mike from Marlin Crawler took at the All Toyotafest in Long Beach ca. Last weekend.

Me, Marlin and Ray explaining what we did with Rays truck. How and why we three linked it front and rear.



You just gotta love how low it sits while running true 40" tires.



Marlin and Ray looking over the Taco.

 

Are you still working on making the front 3 link into a kit?

 

Yes. Both the front and rear. I actually have it all on paper and it can be ordered but it's just not completely setup as a "kit" yet.

 

When we built Rays truck, we used some shock towers from RuffStuff. They are made from 3/16 which isn't bad but the design has a big flaw in it. Because of the length of the bolt going through it and the distance from the sides of the towers to the shock itself, it creates one heck of a lever and distorts the tower allowing the bolt to bend. Not good.



I have since found a new design from Barnes 4WD and will use those in my future builds.



Not only is this tower made of thicker steel, 1/4", the design is better with the actual mounting point of the coil over/shock much closer negating any lever action. I'll be using these in the future.

But, we needed to fix Rays truck asap so we took that design concept and applied it to what we already had.

We got some 1/4" tabs and welded iin some weld in washers and then we cut off the ears from the towers and welded in the tabs.





Then we put gussets on either side in a 45 degree angle to stop any upward movement and came out with a nice and strong setup. Worked great this weekend out on the trails.






This is the only picture we were able to take on our run up Dish Pan and Holcom Creek trails. There was no one on the trails so we just ran them and didn't really stop.

 

That does seem like an odd design. Maybe you can help them redesign their towers.

I like what you did with the gusseting, looks like it should now.

Ray's truck is what I'm using as a template for mine. Thanks for keeping this updated Wyatt.

 

Do you think this will be ok or should I gusset some more?

 

What is the distance from wall to wall where the coilover bolts to? You want that bolt to be as shirt as possible.

 

I'm out of state I will have to measure when I get back. I'm probably going to emulate Ray's set up. I really like that added bracing.

 

Yeah. It's a good setup and should be troue free. A shorter bolt is what your after.

 

Gave Rays Beast a little RST love.

We gave it the RockSolidToys shifter boot treatment and made it look a ton better.





Now it doesn't look factory but it looks better than factory in my opinion. And right now thats the only one that counts!!! Here is a link to the rest of the build. Rays Beast

 

Awesome job making it look OEM.

 

so sexy.

 

So, last Saturday was a very busy Day at RST international headquarters.....My driveway, LOL. First we have another Taco here. It wasn't built by RST. It was Built by Rebel Offroad and they did an awesome job with it but the owner wanted a few things done to it by RST so it's here getting a bit of RST love to compliment the awesome job by Rebel.

Many of you have seen the build over here on Tacomaworld and I'll post a thread on RST on what we do with it. We have already addressed a pesky check engine light that just would not go away for them. It ended up being a simple wiring problem that was easy to make given the t case being used.



But enough of that truck for now. Lets move onto Rays Rig.

As you know, Ray got some new King coilovers, and those required some new mounts. We did the front already and now it is time to do the rear.



We were just going to change the rear towers and call it good but Ray has been wanting to go with a tube bed for a long time and so we figured, why not. Lets just jump into it right now and do it right from the beginning.

First course of action was to get everything off.





We cut the axle tabs off for the shocks and then headed for the towers.





These are the Kings that are going on. they are 16" with the compression damping adjusters on the resi's. Nice shocks.



Then we were trying to figure out the best course of action for the rear of the frame. We knew we were going to have to french or notch the frame to get the shocks to clear so after an hour of discussion, we decided to just cut the rear of the frame off where it would start the notch and then build a new rear section.

This way it would give us a clean slate to work with.






Augustino, one of the hardest workers I've ever met. RST is proud to have him work with us.





We picked up a Plasma cutter just for this job and man what a time saver. And does it ever cut well. We are very happy with this little Plasma cutter.



We used 6X2" boxed tubing for the notched section since the frame was 6" tall there. Then we made the return from 3X2" box tubing and carried it to the rear.



We then put a 3X2" triangle box gusset on the bottom to make a good transistion from the 6" tube and then put plates on it to shore up all the transisstions.

















That was it for the day. We got both sides done Saturday and just need to close the rear section. Stay tuned for more.

 

Yesterday we got Rays truck sitting on it's own again.

We started by finishing the back of the frame. Ray and Augostine did most of the work as I was working on another project.

First we shortened the rear frame by about 6" because of how we are going to mount the spare tire. Then they cut the rear section at 45 degrees, made sure they were square and true to the world then welded those on.





Then after the rear section was in we put corner gussets in.





After the corner gussets were in they cut the outside corners at a 45 and then plated them back in.







Next it was on to the shock hoops. We mounted those and checked for clearance and liked what we saw.













We put a temporary cross brace on the hoops so that we could put it down on it's own weight again.









After it got dark we adjusted the shocks for ride height for now but that will change once we add in the spare tire, tube work and so on.

Stay tuned for more.

 

sub'd

 

Sweet work, looks great!