Long Term Build 2019 Tacoma OR

I'm starting this thread to serve as documenting the life of our 2019 Tacoma Offroad.

Owning a Tacoma has been my dream since when the 3 Gen first released in 2016. 3 years later finally a boy's dream came true, with wife's full support. We picked it up on Sept 14th 2019. Was going to wait for 2020 model but couldn't pass the deal on this 2019. This is the first brand new vehicle I've ever owned! Exciting!!

We have big plans for her. She is going to carry our rooftop tent, our bikes and kayaks for not only weekend getaways but also long trips cross the country.

Sept 21st, 2019. The second weekend we bought her, took her to Pittsburgh International Race Complex for a race weekend. DIYed 2 bed cross bar and mount the tent on for camping at the race track. Worked out great. Loving it.

 

Total Chaos bed stiffeners installed. With the roof top tent and probably more added weight later, I have decided to install bed stiffeners, at least for piece of mind. I chose Total Chaos because I like their design. The shape of them makes it taking less space and less likely to interfere when I slide stuff in/out of the bed. Plus it added a few more tie down points. Installation was pretty straight forward. It requires removing tail light assembly and drilling 3 holes on each side.

KB Voodoo Hi Rise bar installed. They are one of a few vendors who make bar/rack that would work with tonneau cover (have my eyes on Diamondback right now). I bought them because they are the only one that can ship to me in time, and I will be on a trip again tomorrow. The bars and brackets are very well built. I chose the steel version over aluminum because they have higher dynamic weight ratings, plus they are cheaper. Truck isn't my daily driver, so I don't worry about rust that much. The paint on them looks tough but if they do get rust one day. I'll just have to deal with it. Been there done that so not worrying about it too much.

 

Very nice!! Welcome! I’m fairly new also, my hubby helped make a 20 year dream of owning a taco come true for me!! It’s a fantastic feeling!

 

Thank you! Such a great community we have here. I like your wheels.

 

Thank you so much!! I love them! Came with the off road package that I got. Also the Nitto grapplers

 

Bought Diamondback SE plus the cross bin used for $1000 last Saturday. It is awesome and I absolutely love this cover. Already planing on several projects for it.

 

After spending a month researching roof rack options, I came to the conclusion of designing and building my own rack, for cost saving and enjoying the process. I had my eyes on 8020 extrusion aluminum for a while. I love the light weight of the material, rust free, and modularity. Although it's pretty expensive to build with extrusion aluminum, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered all the parts. It costs me about $400.

Finally parts arrived after almost 3 weeks of waiting. To assemble them to a roof rack, I had to tap some threads and drill couple of holes. Nothing too bad.

 

That roof rack is looking great! I'm hoping to build a bed rack out of it soon!

Can't wait to see pics!

Ben

 

The next step would be fitting the rack on the roof of the truck.

Using some pieces of 2 by 4 to level and adjust the height of the rack. Already looking good.



Here comes the real mounting business. Fortunately there are pre-threaded holes under the weather stripping from the factory, 5 on each side. I made my mounting brackets out of 1/4" angled aluminum. Also used some 1" spacer under the brackets to lift it away from the roof a little bit.


The real hard part is to drill perfect holes on the brackets to have them aligned perfectly. It took me the whole day to figure them out. There was defiantly some trial and error.


Here is how it looks when the rack is finally mounted on the roof.

 

Thanks. Just uploaded pictures.

 

So we were exited and went out testing the roof rack. The howling sound made by it cutting through wind is like insane. We can hear it at 40mph, and it becomes unbearable on the interstate. I wasn't completed surprised by it due to the shape of those t slot cross bars, but I certainly wasn't expecting that level of noise. Anyway, I have plan to fix it.

So the second morning, I started working on adding a wind fairing. Made two pieces of aluminum on each side to support the future fairing.

Quick note here: This is the first time I work with aluminium. I started cutting a sheet of aluminum with my angle grinder, but it didn't feel quite right. So I stopped cutting after going through about 2 inches of it, and started Googling. Turns out cutting aluminum with abrasive cutting/grinding wheel is a very dangerous thing. Due to the low melting temperature of aluminium, it would coat on the edge of the cutting wheel, and it not only causes nasty cuts but also could make the cutting wheel blow out into pieces. After some research, I went to Lows and picked up a jigsaw with metal cutting blade. It cuts through aluminum sheet like butter!


With the corner support mounted, I made a temporary wind fairing with cardboard. I want to play with the shape and angle a little bit for best wind noise reduction and air drag.

So I went out and tested my cardboard wind fairing. I'm surprised again how effective in reducing wind noise this thing is. I can barely hear anything anymore, especially with the AC fan on.

Now the project is going to be paused for 2 weeks. We are going to Hawaii for vacation!!! I will come back at it as soon as we are back.

 

Looks good! Thanks for the tip on cutting aluminum, I've been wondering how I was going to cut brackets for my project. Was figuring I'd have to have them waterjet out. Jigsaw would be much easier and quicker.

Truck looks good!

Ben

 

I'm glad that the tip could help someone. Good luck to your project!

 

Very nice

 

Wind fairing making in progress.

 

It's on. But due to too much air going through the gap between fairing and roof, it caused turbulence behind the fairing. It shakes like crazy over 50 mph. I've been scratching my head in the past 3 days added rubber bushings to the mount and tried all sorts of things and finally figured out the reason of the shake/vibration. One piece of ducttape closed the gap and all issues went away. It's super quiet. So last night I took the whole thing apart and working on lowering the whole rack and adjusting the angle of the fairing as well, to make it even lower profile, in addition to closing the gap.

 

Thank you! I'm mostly still learning.

 

Painted. The weather now is not ideal. Only 36F in the garage. Don't know how many days it would take the paint to dry.

 

Last step, mounted everything back on after painting. It looks Ok to my eyes but would be better if I can make it even lower profile. That might be the future plan. Wind noise is barely noticeable and from what I can tell, it costs me less than 1 MPG drop. Happy

 

I will never criticize someone for trying to fabricate their own stuff cause I love it and do it a lot too. I find that by the time I am done I probably should have just paid the cost to buy a finished product from someone who has already done all the research and learning curves.
How do you feel with this project now that it looks really complete? It looks nice but it sort of fell right in line with all the other styles on the market so I am curious how much money was saved, if any?

Again, awesome job, I dig it and respect the handyman approach.