05 Tacoma SAC and 4.7 V8 Swap

Not exactly, no glass on the market will by itself (for long), but I purchased the steel rail toppers by @KB Voodoo and bed stiffeners. I picked up the TC stiffeners, but there's a guy in 2nd Gen BST that makes a nice set for less.
I've made composite speaker enclosures I could stand on and have sea kayaks that are super thin and incredibly strong, so if you sanded down the top and added a lot more layers of glass (diolen, Kevlar, carbon) the rails could become very strong as well. I used polyester resin and some aviation grade epoxy resins in my repairs of the fenders.

 

Are those the McNeil flattop bedsides?

 

Yup. Pewp. It was days of work to repair and mount. You can see the enormous reveal around the taillight. The other side is the total opposite.

 

That's crappy. I'll do a bunch of digging into McNeil over the next couple days and see what's up. I notice McNeil and advance use the same picture for front fenders who's robbing who's website there for photos haha

 

I've seen some up close photos of Advanced, the tabs, the complete forward portion of the bedside, etc and they're way nicer. I'd even consider Fiberwerx at this point, more difficult to mount, but a solid piece of glass with no black paint cover-ups on the inside.
I had to drill the spotwelds and install rivnuts to make the sides fit. I could have also made a bracket like the guys do who are fully caged, but I cut the hell out of my sheetmetal clearancing for 35s already. I also had to cut the vertical piece that the rear portion of the bed and tail lights attached to. That area was a complete mess.

 

Well hopefully I can cancel the McNeil order... I placed it later Friday night. Is there a discount at Advanced?

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/its-black-time-of-year-again.517759/page-26#post-16498325

Advanced is doing a black friday sale. 15% if you buy before Friday. 20% if you buy between Friday and Monday. We did a group buy with Advanced back in early October and orders are starting to ship.

 

Are places open tomorrow or are they closed for the holiday?

 

No idea. Best to just call and see. Advanced has always answered when I called, and they have a chat function through their website that I've used to contact them.

 

We have learned to take those statements with a grain of salt (the highlighted part above).

Though I think suspension style is just a matter of personal preference and both have pros/cons, I personally think links with coilovers are a good way to go long term. No issues with axle wrap, the fine tuning is a bit easier to do than with leafs, can get more flex, improved road manners, etc. The cons are the slightly higher price for the parts (especially the coilovers). Also, links are more time consuming to set up initially than leafs.

 

I think all said and done at the time it cost me 3 to 4 thousand Canadian... But that's doing all my own work and finding old axles to fix up or get parts from. It wasn't too bad especially for the rate my truck was going through wheel bearings.

Also I was able to cancel my McNeil order this morning. They had no problem at all doing so and didn't ask why just said okay. So I'll give them that for customer service.

 

So between this Friday and Monday coming up it's the 20% off sale?

 

The flyer says "Black Friday / Cyber Monday", and they're not open on the weekend. I would guess that if you order online between Friday and Monday the 20% off code will work.

I don't work for them, so call them if you want real, definite answers. I'm just making logical guesses over here.

 

All good got all the details I needed quickly using their online chat feature.

 

Well I spent a bunch of money. Ordered up my Advanced fiberglass fenders and bedsides. Also ordered a Metal Tech 4x4 bumper for the 4runner but that doesn't have anything to do with the Tacoma build.

 

Nice. I should have my fenders and bedsides from Advanced late next week. I hope they make the trip across the country okay.

 

How long were you waiting for yours?

 

It'll be 7.5 weeks from order to delivery.

 

Well I've had a pretty productive set of days off. Got all the excess metal cut off the frame ha ha







Spent a bunch of time grinding and getting the frame all cleaned up. Also plated where the engine mounts have been relocated to.

 

Put the trans and tcase in and got the V8 in centered up and mounts welded into place.