2011 DCSB 6 spd, 35’s & KINGS

Whatsup guys, I figured id start up a build thread on here after lurking for about a year. This is my first Tacoma, i daily’d an 85 Fj60 before i got the taco but aside from that i havent spent much time in the toyota community. Most of my “build” background has been in custom 50’s n 60’s cars and trucks, and tinkering with some old bikes as well. Anywho, onto the truck and the build.......

I picked up this 2011 DCSB TRD Offroad in June/July 2018. Its magnetic grey, 6 speed manual, had 2 previous owners but only 41,xxx miles and came with a fully optioned ARE Z Series cap that i really liked. Considering the cap and mileage, i got the truck for a really nice price. It was sitting at a chevy dealer in the used lot after the previous owner traded it in on a new camaro if i recall correctly.

Heres a couple shots after bringing it home....

 

The first “mod” i did was a bedrug, the composite bed was super slick and i needed something to keep cargo in place, plus it matched the liner inside the ARE cap. After that was debadging everything with the exception of 3 or 4 logos. They all got plasti dipped black....







Also got new TRD Offroad decals for the bedsides. I initially planned to leave it bare, but it just looked to plain so i got a set of matte black ones...



The plan for this truck from the start was some pretty extensive mods with 35’s, i wanted a decent trail rig that i can camp with but its also my daily driver like many of you guys, so it has to be reliable and function well on and offroad. After some research, I opted not to go long travel, I just dont see myself ever needing a long travel setup. Im sure itd be alot more fun to thrash on, but i dont think i really NEED it

I opted for KING Coils up front with Total Chaos Uniball UCA’s and KING Shocks outback with OME Heavy Duty Dakar packs, which are rated for ~660lbs over stock i believe.

 

Wheels and tires..... theres tons of options. The Km3 was pretty new on the scene when i was getting ready to order tires, the reviews were all pretty awesome, guys i follow on social media were all raving about there performance offroad and how quiet they are on road. I found a couple sweet deals online around black friday/cyber monday that included discounts and free shipping. So needless to say i pulled the trigger, 315/75r16 Km3’s and i decided on a set of SCS F5’s in 16x8 with a 3.5” BS. I ordered them in Matte Bronze, at the time i had never seen a set of bronze F5’s on a Magnetic Grey truck, but its since been done by a few people. I dig the color combo alot...







A few weeks before i put the lift on, did the cab mount chop and hammered the pinch weld back on the firewall.....





Just an FYI, slightly out of order here, I did the CMC before i had the wheels and tires mounted or lift installed. I figured itd save me some time. Im going to be cutting the entire end of the cab mount off in the near future and modifying the previous chop. It still rubs slightly in certain situations, but ive been driving it for almost a year without much issue as is.

After that, lift went on fairly easy. The rear was a breeze. Had it banged out within a few hours by myself. The front wasnt bad except for the pass side UCA bolt. I had to “massage” the inner fender a bit to get that bolt in and out haha. But otherwise not too bad. I trimmed the fenders, bedsides and flares all around 2.5”. Per usual, all the flare clips broke, so heres some flareless shots right after install.....

 

The front end was a hair low, ended up pulling the coils out multiple times to adjust the height, this turned out to be alot more difficult than anticipated haha. Also got new clips and re installed the flares





Winter rolled in, a very mild one, but I pretty much just drove the truck exactly like this for 4 or 5 months...

 

The reason i havent posted a build thread until now is, me being a DIY guy and enjoying making parts for my projects, i had a hard time convincing myself to post a build thread for a truck that just had a lift installed and wheels/tires. I wanted to wait until i could start the actual build process. Another mod i did over the winter was extend the shifter and put a more traditional round knob on it. I cut some round stock, put a slight arch to it so the shifter would lean slightly to the driver, sliced the original shifter and welded in the roundstock extension. I believe it was around 3.5”. Feels so much better to me, more like a traditional truck shifter which i like



Next mod i did was a ram mount holder. I built my own set that bolts in by the HVAC controls. You can buy these from a couple places but they want $70-$80 for a pair. I ordered a piece of 6061 alu bar and built my own with some basic handtools. With the price of the alu bar and two 1/4-20 1” Ram mount balls i had around $18 in the pair when finished. I didnt have my metal countersink bit that day, so the countersinks arent perfect but, such is life haha







Next up was color matching the grill, im not a fan of the chrome grill and emblem, so i got some duplicolor and tried my hand at it. I used there adhesion promoter, then primer, then color and clear. Pretty stoked on the result. I ground the tabs off the back side of the grill so i could remove the chrome “shell” during this process and then re epoxied it on after paint




Shot of the grill on the left, hood on the right....



So as time went on, i continued to have major issues with flare clips braking, almost losing flares going down the highway multiple times. I had enough of that, so i decided to go with pocket flares. Bushwackers are like $500, so that was out of the question, as im going to be cutting alot of the flare off anyway. I ended up getting rdj flares ( i think thats what they were called ) from ebay. They were still like $279, so not “cheap” but alot better than $500. The fitment was really good too. I ended up installing those, cutting 2.5” off of those flares, and while i had the flares off, i cut the steel fenders and bedsides even further back almost to the bolt holes for the flares, looks alot cleaner. I had planned to color match the flares but im diggin the black, these opened the wheelwells up even more, plentyyyy of flex clearance.

 

Love it so far! Looks awesome.

 

Initially, i was dead set on a Pelfrey front bumper. But they went upside down, so that wasnt an option. Then BAMF bought up all the old Pelfrey inventory and had some bumpers available, but the more i weighed in shipping costs, it didnt work out logistically. Soon after, BAMF dropped there own line of 2nd gen front bumpers, which were already a few hundred cheaper than pelfrey units, the BAMF design looks stronger, comes with there beefy frame reinforcement brackets and they were offering $200 off there already killer price for presale orders. So despite the shipping cost, i pulled the trigger on one of there front bumpers, and snagged a set of rear shackle hangers as well. They should be here next week. Stoked on this

I really wanted to build both front and rear bumpers myself, ive done quite a bit of fabrication work on cars and trucks, and have my own mig, tig and plasma to work with. The main reason i didnt opt to build the front bumper, was the fact that i dont have a winch yet and didnt want to build a bumper without physically having the winch in house to use as i built the bumper around it. I am however still building my own high clearance rear bumper. Heres a shot of my initial sketch for the rear, with a full width single swingout.....



I have a set of 1” thick weld through shackle tabs and a chromoly spindle from TMR Customs that ill be using. 2” receiver hitch tube through the license plate area and high clearance all the way up to the wheel wells. Nothing too crazy, looks like most high clearance bumpers. I have a couple tricks for the swingout though to make it really clean

Last week i started mocking it up in posterboard to get an idea of what im looking at, this was a couple hours of playin around




Slightly more finalized design, the posterboard isnt dead flat but this should allow me to transfer patterns and plasma all this out at once which will save me a tonnn of time. Ill make small adjustments as needed in steel, obviously i cant mock up the high clearance sides untill i cut the bed next week, but were gettin there




The swingout should be a pretty straightforward build with 2x3 for the main frame, couple pull pins and an adj. latch

Btw, mocked up my main brackets using scrap plywood. These will be cut out of 1/4” steel, rest of the bumper will be 3/16” plate

 

I also started building my own Prinsu style roof racks. Theres a bunch of DIY threads on here for these. A cab rack and cap rack from prinsu wouldve set me back around $1300-$1400 for the pair. Im sure they’re incredibly nice racks, but i dont have that kinda spare coin for a pair of racks haha, so i got a sheet of .188 6061 aluminum and .125 6061 aluminum. Ordered 14 47” prinsu replacement crossbars from Tnutz at around $21 a piece and cut my own side plates from the .188 aluminum sheet with the plasma. Heres the rough mockup with plywood....



The side plates sit out further than that, but i had to set them inboard more for mockup so they would stand, ghetto, but it works haha

Transfer the patterns to the aluminum



Plasma’d



& mocked up for the first time




I also ordered a bunch of black stainless hardware for these, so ill be switching everything to black button heads, and ill be running 3, 1/4-20 eye bolts on each side for bungee hook points or whatever. More pics.....

 

For the top corners on the swingout frame, i wanted a mandrel bend in the 2x3, mainly just for a cleaner look than a square frame. Mandrel bent rect tubing isnt cheap and no shops around me have the capability to do it. So i bought these pieces from welderseries. There just tab and slot style design, slide together nicely and leave a nice 90 degree pocket on the corner to weld up. Heres a pic of the pieces sitting in place.....





Once they’re welded up and smoothed out, looks just like a mandrel bend....




The pair of them welded and smoothed....




Im ordering steel in a couple days to get started on the bumper build at the end of the week. The bumper and shackle hangers from Bay Area Metal Fab should be here thursday also. Im off work all next week so im pretty stoked to see how much i can get done

 

Picked up steel from a local supplier after work today. Just laying out the patterns for now. Large sheet for all the bumper pieces is 3/16” , the smaller sheet with the main frame brackets is 1/4”

 

Managed to get the plate cut with the plasma after work. Cutting by hand doesnt leave a dead perfect edge, but a few minutes with a flap wheel and the edges will clean up perfectly fine



Also cut the hole for the receiver hitch behind the license plate. Layed out my holes to drill for the corners, used a step bit to get the right size, then plasma cut the straight lines....

 

Subd

 

Bruhhhhhh

I'm loving that roof rack!

 

Thanks dude!

 

I like your build , Lucky man to find a manual trans ! With a fj cruiser xcase you would have a gold nugget

 

Funny you mention that. Eventually, probably a year or two down the road, im planning on putting a marlin taco box in it, and i would really like to swap to a fj case while im in there. I need to figure out how to fit 3 sticks in that center console haha

 

Got a solid 4 or 5 hours in on the bumper today. Everythings shaping up nicely. Heres a shot of the main brackets that bolt to the frame. I made a few changes, this is the finished design for the most part....



Bolted in place... thats a piece of 1/4” roundstock thats slid into a hole i drilled. Ill weld this into place and trim the excess off after. This is for the little notch on the back of the frame rail that the roundstock will slide into



I then started tacking pieces in place. I used a couple washers as spacers so i could leave a nice corner pocket to fill with weld, then clamped pieces in place with a 90 degree jig to keep stuff relatively square while tacking. Not the best pics, but you get the idea





Progress so far..... not too bad for a day one doing actual fab work. Everythings just tacked in place for now. Tomorrow ill cut the bedsides and flares and start building the high clearance sides




Heres a shot of the fitment of the frame brackets to the inside of the shell. The posterboard mock up saved me a boat load of time while working with the steel

 

Today started off with chopping the bedsides. I cut them a hair below the tail light so i would be able to trim them once the bumper was built and get a proper gap.



More posterboard mockups.....



Transfer to steel, plasma, tacked up...





I didnt take many picture during the drivers side process, but the bumper is almost completely tacked together now. Ill start finish welding tomorrow and smoothing everything out. Then ill start the integrated hitch and swingout build on monday. Heres a last second shot of how the bumpers currently sitting....

 

WELDER UP nice work ! How much $$$$ in steel ?

 

This is awesome!!! OP - You got mad skills