0210 Crawls Starbucks

I really enjoyed the thread, was going to make an offer for your cap - but figured freight + customs would kill the deal.

 

For sure. You guys have much better deals down there anyways. These caps all come from your factories, get hit with duties and the insane exchange rate, and then land on our doorsteps for literally twice what you're paying.

 

I'll second that, and for what we pay for them, they should be built to a much higher standard. Now that my canopy is off having the window replaced, I am realizing that I miss the truck look without the canopy. Only thing I dislike is the the suspension is a wee bit stiff without that 200lbs from the canopy, with the canopy installed smooth as butter. Could also be the roads where I am and that the back side of my wheels is cake in mud which is probably causing lot of the oscillations.

Looking forward to seeing your new bed build, your doing what I originally wanted to do but I didn't have a manufacture at the time, willing to work with me, then I found Cruisin. Very interested in seeing what you come up with. Who know I may get ride of my canopy if they can't stop the windows from leaking.

 

so since you have so much money to fund this build want to help fund mine
haha

Mine's being delayed beacuse work is so up and down lately

Oh and what water cans were you using before the scepters? I need to find something a bit cheaper for the time being, and scepters don't fit under the tonneau cover.

 

Hmm, can't you lie the sceptres on their sides? OR do they leak like their gas versions do as well?

 

Haha

I used the blue, rectangular containers from CrappyTire. They did pretty well and even had spouts built in under the lid. No leaks as far as I can remember.

 

None of the Scepters should be leaking when on their side. I'd try this setup myself (before buying other containers).

 

I pulled the plug and ordered the Truck Covers USA Roll Tonneau Cover yesterday. Phoned AutoAnything and got 5% off. Not much, but an extra $80 is better than nothing!

And got the Total Chaos bed stiffeners on the way, too.

After the tonneau is on, I'll check fridge clearance and decide whether I want to get a BedRug (it's 3/4" thick at the bottom, which might not work for my limited space), or LineX the bed instead...

 

Might have been the gas ones we had before, noticed if they were tipped over on their side fuel would sometimes leak out of the breather hole. Still best jerry cans out there if ya ask me, just darn pricey. Mind you after puncturing two of the crappy tire ones (they were sceptre ones as well just not military grade) I had in the truck and just marking up military grade one, I will say that they are worth the money.

Very interested to see how you get the rack around the tonneau cover, that specific models seems to sit wide on the bedrails, might be the pictures though. Eagerly watching and drooling.

 

You sure know how to make me drool. Very cool truck. DCLB MGM, love it. Beautiful dog and beautiful scenery. If I ever head that way I'm going to hit you up on places to go.

 

Not going "around" the tonneau's bedrail . Going trough .

So, first of all, I've decided to reuse my FrontRunner rack (will likely make it a bit longer with some extensions, too). I haven't discussed this with Cruisin' Off Road yet, but I don't think this should be a problem. They should be be able to (fairly easily) manufacture "feet" that will attach the rack to the bed sides. Essentially larger, and angled, versions of the feet the rack normally comes with. As for the attachment itself, I figure there are three options:

1. Drill holes through the plastic bedrail cover (and tonneau's side rail), in spots where the cover already has protrusions that clip-in into the bedsides. Drilling in these spots would remove the clip/protrusion on the bottom, but allow us to replace it with a bolt, without any modifications to the actual bedside itself (the holes for the clips/protrusions are already there). The bed rack would then be bolted down using these holes/bolts.

This method will involve the least amount of modifications - a few holes through the tonneau's bedside mounts (no big deal), and a few holes through the plastic bedside covers (easily replaceable, so again, no big deal).

Holes would be drilled in roughly these spots (perhaps even without any modifications to the tonneau itself - depends on spacing):



2. Weld the rack/feet to the tonneau's bedside mounts. A bit more permanent.

3. Cut notches in the tonneau's bedside mounts that would allow a vertical piece of metal to be inserted, and then bolted into the OEM bed rails. (I suspect additional drilling of the inner part of the tonneau's bedside mounts will be necessary for this.) This would essentially duplicate the mounting/attachment of most existing bed racks.

 

Hmm, Ever think about getting him to fabricate you metal bedrails and attach the rack to that. Would avoid any more modifications to the truck bedsides. Also with your new total chaos bed stiffener, and doing this you would have fairly tough bed that should not get the known cracking issues in the sheet metal. Plus it would all be removable if you decided to sell the truck and build another?

 

That's an interesting idea. I figured that the rack's feet would have a horizontal bar running between them (on both sides of the bed's sheet metal, if possible), but completely replacing the plastic bedrails with new, metal ones could be a cleaner solution. I'll discuss it with Cruisin' when I get my tonneau installed (should be shipping Thursday).

 

You could also do the front rail and get a boxed in rack, that should work with the tonneau cover. This is something I was looking at doing prior to the canopy purchase, but I couldn't get it to work out how I was going to stiffen the bed enough to sort out the issue of the sides warping. Now that Total chaos has a bed stiffener, and a few others, It should be easily doable.

I belieb KB voodoo, BAMF and a few others already have pre made bedrails you could purchase and modify.

 

I'm liking this idea more and more. Will look into pre-made bed rails!

 

Glad I could help you out spending some money. haha.

 

to see what I mean about the bedrails, they show them on their website, not sure if it comes with the cross bars or not.



Judging from how the bedrails sit, you should easily be able to get Jason to weld on some 1.5" round stock and create your rack from that. Only issue with using the pre made rails is finding out the type of metal so that he can weld properly to it or source the correct materials to do so, that and oh cost.

 

Yeah, I'm already looking at them on their site: http://www.kbvoodoo.com/shop/powder-coated-side-rail-cap-system-short-bed-fits-years-2005-2015

I'm not crazy about the "textured" powdercoat here, but suppose I could get them raw, especially if I'll be making modifications to them.

It also looks like they will conflict with the TC bed stiffeners, as they use the same bolt to attach... Also, the above link is for 2nd gen Tacomas... I don't know whether they have a 3rd gen option yet.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/all-metal-bed-rails-like-on-the-nissan-frontier.406537/

Link to a thread in Tacoworld discussing metal bedrails.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/tacoma-bed-channel-stiffeners-you-might-need-them.450912/

Guys used the bed stiffeners with the KB voodoo rails. they just tucked them under, think it is the last post or on the last page. edit, completely wrong with that location, it is buried somewhere in there as I was looking at these the other night and going through my old links. Joys of living in camp again, I should be out working out or doing something physical