@DIY_Davy A mostly fabricated myself build

I’ve been lurking through these forums for many years but finally got a Tacoma a couple years ago. My close friends have told me I should document all the things I’ve done and made for the truck. I finally signed up today and want to post the things I’ve done so far to potentially help others with their build or specific things I’ve made others can use to build their own. I’d also like to have a list of short term projects coming up and well as sort of wish list items with in process design ideas. This is somewhat of a budget conscious build, but most of my projects end up costing more than expected because I’m teaching myself to do all these things like welding and tend to make mistakes.

My Tacoma: 2021 TRD Off-road Super White

Instagram for real time progress of the projects I’m working on:
@diy_davy
https://instagram.com/diy_davy?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

A week or two after I bought it:
January 2021



Current setup:
January 2023

 

My first add-on was the tyger roll up tonneau cover. I believe I purchased it for about $180 on Amazon and put it on in January 2022. I had a tri-fold cover on an old dodge Ram I used to have and vastly prefer the roll up cover so I have access to my entire bed. The cover has held up excellently over the last year. I have made some changes to it that I will cover in a different post.

 

My next change was the UpTop Overland Alpha Cab rack. I added an extreme LEDs X6s light bar to the rack as well. I also got a roam 83L case to put on top secured with the Sherpa mounts which work excellent. I really like the rack as well as the LEDs, I don’t recall there being many reviews or long term info on the X6s specifically but so far I have not any any problems. The rack is extremely stout and capable of holding whatever I need it to. Adding the rack sent me down the modding rabbit hole as you can tell I hadn’t really made any changes up until this point about a year and a half after buying.

May 5th 2022:

 

Adding the roof rack, box and lights had all got me more into camping and made me want to get a clamshell roof tent to take on big trips. I was interested in the GFC roof tent but even though I’m sure they’re nice, they run about $4000. I also needed a bed rack which sell for about $1000. I decided I’d try to build my own to not only save money but suit my needs better. I wanted a somewhat light weight hard top clamshell roof tent and a bed rack that I could still put my DRZ400 motorcycle in the back by just removing an easy to uninstall rear hoop. I have always tinkered with CAD as a hobby but as an engineer student and recently taking courses in stress analysis I had more knowledge to run stress analysis tests to properly source my materials based on loads and strengths of materials to minimize costs and maximize strength. This led me to come up with some cad models and brainstorming for my materials and plans for the design. I started designing what I wanted to build in the beginning of July. I modeling every individual bolt, nut, washer, aluminum extrusion, etc. so I would have a full breakdown and list of materials needed to build everything in addition to ripcords free bill of materials on his site. I also had a half cross country trip to Michigan planned so I needed to source all my materials and build everything before August in one month.

July 2nd 2022:

 

This will be the build pictures of my custom bed rack and roof tent. The roof tent is mostly based on other products on the market like GFC and definitely highly influenced by Ripcords build. The bed rack is entirely my design and I haven’t seen much similar with what is essentially a modular rack containing a load bearing rear hoop and a front chase style rack with a very high load rating. Another change that has to be completed before the trip was a slim down change to the tonneau cover so that I could still use the roll up with the bed rack. The roll up function also greatly impacted my design of the bed rack and may have done it differently if the roll up function wasn’t a concern to me. This was also my first welding project so there was a learning curve dialing in the settings and getting decent welds to run. My welds definitely improved as I got closer to completion of the rack but I think all my welds are structurally sound as the rack has been on my truck for 30,000 miles with about 15k of those being fully loaded with the tent along with some other loads like multiple kayaks when the tent was removed. I appreciate critiques in my work in an effort to produce better quality in my future projects. I’m extremely proud of how both the rack and the tent turned out.

Bed Rack:

Completed July 21st 2022

 

I decided to post the Roof tent separately. This project was also difficult for me because although I know HOW to see using a machine I have never tried something like this. But again like the rack I think the tent came out really went in the end too and I have had no water intrusion or leakage anywhere. I only had about a week to build this and modify my bed cover.

Roof tent:

Completed July 30th 2022





Really loved having it for the trip and finished just in time.




Last picture shows the modified bed cover to be about 6 inches more narrow. Basically just cut the fabric and the inner frame and supports 6 inches shorter and sewed and riveted everything back together:

 

I built a hoist system for my garage to pickup the roof tent easily off the rack as it probably weighs about 150lbs and is incredibly unwieldy to move around.

October 12 2022:

 

Now that I’m caught up to this month. I finally cut and installed the covers for my bed rack I had in my initial cad model to somewhat mimic the uptop cab rack side covers. Unfortunately the right side has a slight curve in the bottom section because I’m horrible at handling an angle grinder. I need to figure out a better tool for making perfectly straight cuts in a section like this. I also put in some seat covers made by luckyman from Amazon that fit somewhat snug. Also about 6 months ago I upgraded to Toyo open country 265/75/16 so about an inch bigger than stock tires but more aggressive. I got two flats with the stock off-road tires.

February 21st 2023

 

I have a slew of things I’ll be installing and fabricating in the next two weeks: rough country Vertex 2.5 3” front coil overs and rear struts, OME Dakar HD leaf springs, JBA UCAs, sumo springs rear “bump stops”, a 100w solar setup for my roof tent, some improvements to my roof tent mounting system and finally some rock sliders I’m hoping to complete this weekend. I may have a build video/tutorial for the sliders and the solar setup. Really excited to drastically change the look and capability of the truck with the lift and sliders. These changes are mostly for a big two week trip to Colorado planned for late April. I will definitely be giving short and long term updates about the lift because the rough country vertex have really been a subject of controversy.

 

Looking good!

 

Update on the rock sliders. Modeled them last night to have all my measurements and cuts ready. I got everything bent and notched today and tack welded most of it together. The hardest part was the notching and introduced the most variability in the build. I used the harbor freight pipe bender and went super slow in small increments and had virtually no kinking. It would have been much easier and quicker with a tube notcher.

 

The rain put my slider project to a halt should finish it up tomorrow, but my suspension setup just came in. Should be putting it on next week when I get access to a shop lift. RC vertex 2.5 3” front coil overs and rear struts to keep factory rake for the added weight. OME Dakar HD leaf springs, Sumosprings for “bump stops”. JBA upper control arms. Excited to get it all on and see the change in height. I’ll do a full write up on the install and actual lifted height with everything’s installed.

 

Update on the suspension. I put everything on pretty smoothly (about 20 hours of having my truck on a lift and being absolutely miserable trying to get the UCA bolt through). The vertex has been awesome so far and feels better in everyway over the OR suspension at the 5 setting. The couple times I have hit the new sumospring bump stops have been a significant improvement over stock with a much more linear progression from first contacting the stops until full load. The dakar hd leafs gave around 3 inches of life with what I estimate to be about 400lbs extra load on the truck including the tent. I'm not 100% satisfied with the alignment I got, specifically the camber. Let me know if these are normal. Here a couple pictures of the new suspension going on.

 

Also build update on the sliders, finished welding, paint and mounting up