Barlowrs 06 Taco Expo Build Thread

Well everyone says all good things take time, and this bumper was no exception, but it finally arrive in the mail…my FULLY LOADED CBI Rear bumper. :wings::wings: This puppy includes the following:

- High clearance bumper (Bushmaster 2.0)
- Tire Gate
- Hi-Lift Mount
- 2 Jerry Can Holder
- CB Antenna Mount
- Fold Down Table (Perfect for my camp stove)
- Backup Lights
- Hitch

So, although CBI does have a wait, trust me, their workmanship is WELLLLL worth the wait!

The jerry can holder and fog lights should be arriving end of the week, so for now, this write-up does not include them, but I will revise it once I get them and install them…so onto the write-up and pics!

First step was to paint it. Obviously, this is meant to be used (I cannot afford things like this just for looks) so I chose rust-oleum so that I could touch it up easily. I originally planned to do Rust-oleum Hammered, however, after the first coat, I realized that it was more silver/grey than black and did not like it. So I topped it off with a coat of plain old semi-gloss rust-oleum. All in all I think it turned out well. (Take your time doing this, as there is a LOT of metal to cover!)

One thing I want to make clear, do not paint the spindle or the bushing on the gate, this will make it impossible to install later (trust me, I made the mistake of painting the spinal, luckily my gf had a great idea and used acetone to take the paint right off).

Once I had the painting done, the fun began. CUTTING TIME!....I guess my snorkel broke the ice, because it was much easier for me to cut into my truck this time around (no more tears..haha).

Because this is a “cut to fit” type thing, there is no template or standard way to do this, as each one will fit each truck differently. I chose to make cardboard templates to get an idea of where the cut should be, then made it nice and strait using the body lines as reference:





Here it is all cut up. Note that you do not need to cut the crap directly below the tail light (it is much thicker as well):



I have not had time to clean the cut up yet, but I plan to clean it up, use touch up paint to keep it from rusting, then using that door jamb plastic liner crap to make it a nice clean line.

Next it is time to mock it up and see if my templates worked. This part was difficult because I had to figure out a way to lift the bumper in place, with only the help of my gf (the bumper weights more than her!). I finally figured out a good plan of attack. I used ratcheting tie straps anchored inside my bed to ratchet it up into place. It actually worked very well:



Once again, CBI great craftsmanship showed, as all the bolt holes line up perfectly, and the grade 8.8 bolts they supplied worked perfect. I may upgrade to 10.9 someday, but this thing is very solid as is.

My templates actually worked great and there was no need to trim anymore, so I was able to bold her up for good.

Here you can see the bumper itself.



I made the cardboard templates you saw in my first post, but for those that just want to measure and cut. I would start with the following measurements:

4.25” below the bottom of the tail light.

START here and then you can trim later. Even with my templates, I made sure to cut a little higher than I wanted and then trimmed it later to get a nice strait cut. Ideally, you want to have about 0.75” clearance around the board. This means that my tail lights have approximately 0.75” clearance underneath them, and the body line cut is 0.75” clearance as well.



Why 0.75”celarnace? Well I took after the install I tool her out for a bit of flexing to see how much the Tacoma flexes. We all know the frames are not boxed and DO flex. Her you can see how it looks when the rear tire is stuffed and frame fully flexed (I had my opposite rear OFF the ground)





You can see that with the frame fully flexed, there is about 0.25” clearance, so my frame flexed 0.5” total.

One the edge was cleaned up and strait, I used some Toyota touch up paint to cover the raw metal edge to stop from rusting. Then I decided to add some of that black plastic door trim crap to clean up the edge, I think it looks pretty good with that:



I also lined the bottom of my table with it and the frame that my table folds up against (the table does rest against it, so metal on metal contact will wear my paint right off, this will help a bit):





The tire gate slides right into place (assuming you did not paint the spindle or bushings) and here is the final product!





Swing down Table:



After that all that was left was adding the rest of the accessories:
Aux back up lights:



License plate light:



I also used gasket material to make a rubber washer to reduce the metal on metal contact on the main gate latch:



And the final touch, the dual can carrier!:

 

man i really like how that came out it looks really good

 

Time to wire up the lights. As you all know, I always try to make everything look as stock as possible so obviously, using a stock switch was a given. Unfortunately, I have never like the stock Tacoma fog light switch, as it does not illuminate when the lights are on like the FJ auxiliary and off-road switches do. (Not that I need a notification when the lights are on, they are brighter than heck!)

SO, I decided to run a FJ Auxiliary Light switch. I also picked up the harness, though if you do not want to do that, you could solder onto the pins. The harness just makes it easier, and I can unplug it when I need to tear the dash apart. The part numbers are as follows:

FJ Auxiliary Light Switch:

$53 PT297-35070-AS Auxiliary Driving Light Switch

PT297-35070-AS
Auxiliary Switch Harness:

$36 PT297-35070-SH Lamp Wire Harness

PT297-35070-SH

The relay and all the rest of the wiring harness came with the light force lights.

First things first, here is the diagram I drew up of how to install them:



I found an unused wiring harness behind all my switches (my truck doesn’t have a lot of options, but it is all pre wired in the harness, so there are several unused harnesses back there. Using a multi meter, I figured out which wire was the constant 12V, which I used for the switch power, and then I figured out which one was 12V when the light switch was on. I used this for illumination power. Because I know I will never use this harness, I simply cut the wires from the original plug and soldered them to my Aux switch harness.

Here is the switch all mounted up:



Next up I mounted the relay in one of the relay mounting spots I made on my aux fuse block:



All that was left was to route the wires. The lightforce harness gave me MORE than enough wire to get through the firewall and into my switch. Then out the front to the lights.

I used some shielding and heat shrink tubing to protect the wires and wired up a set of weatherpack connectors for some protection.



And here they are mounted out front.




Here is a shot with the switch backlight:




Here is a shot of the lights on (see the little green LED indication on the switch as well). Sorry, this is in my structure; I don’t have any good outside shots yet.

 

My favorite build ever.


I want my truck to look like yours one day.

 

wow i love your rig where in so cal are you?

 

how much did that rear bumper run you?

 

Work and live in Irvine.

 

contact CBI, they can let you know all the pricings. It all depends on what you want, its like a menu and you pick and chose your options.

 

Hey everyone, I got some PMs that my pics werent working...sorry about that, I guess photobucket decided they wanted to start charging me. Anyway everything should be up and running again. Enjoy, and as always if you have questions, let me know.
-Robert

 

Well after beating the crap out of my cross member and other underbelly parts, I figure its time to protect my girls belly…time for more armor! (My ½ ton truck is now pushing several tons with all the armor..haha).

As far as skids go, budbuilt is one of the best, and that is what I chose. These things are beautifully built and fit like a dream. Every hole lined up and there was no issues with the craftsmanship. I did however, run into one problem, and that is going to be the main focus of this write-up: The skids do not play nice with an all-pro bumper.

I know many people are running an all-pro plate bumper like me, and many people have often wondered if the bud built skid kit would fit. The short answer is yes, it does, however, it does require some modification to both the skid and the bumper. So here we go:

First things first, some paint. Because these are skids and I intend to use them as such, I chose standard old flat black rustolium. This is very easy to touch up after scraping the hell out of them on a rocky trip (this is what all my armor is painted with). The skids come VERY clean, I didn’t get a picture, but honesty, it looked like they polished them…they were sexy. Standard paint procedures here though, scuff them up with some sand paper or scotch pad, clean with acetone, and pile on the layers of paint.






Once they are painted, its time to get to work. Start with the forward skid, this is where you will run into issues with the all-pro bumper. The skid utilizes the stock skid supports. Unfortunately, when my allpro bumper is mounted in the correct position, it is tight against the bottom of these supports; therefore there is no clearance for the skid to mount (this is also why a stock skid will not work with the allpro bumper:

(Sorry for the horrible picture):


Luckily, the allpro bumpers bottom two bolts are located on the outside of where the skid mounts, so it is possible to trim the bottom lip off the bumper, but still use the lower two bolts. A quick pass with a plasma, and you are good to go (you can see what I mean below):





Now, this allows for the proper clearance between the bottom of the bumper and the skids, however, the skid itself still needs to be modified. When the skit is mounted, you can see that the front lip is not bent at a 90 deg (does not go up vertically) but instead sticks out forward a bit:



Because the allpro bumper has a vertical support right at this location, the front lip must be trimmed to allow the bumper to mount properly. Once again, a quick pass with a plasma and you are good:



Once this is complete, the bumper and skids bolt right up as they should. The rest of the install on the skids is very strait forward, and once again, because everything is manufactured so well, everything lines up perfectly making it very hassle free. Budbuilt already has a very good write-up on installing the skids so I will not get into all that.

Once they are all bolted up, here is the final product:





If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up.

How much I cut off:

Well on the bumper, you are limited to how much you can trim becuase there is a reinforment behind the bumper that welds to the bottom lip (right at the bend) and you do not want to cut the welds. Essentially, you need to cut as much as you can without messing up the rest of the bumper. I went out and measured mine, and it is dead nuts at 2.5" that I trimmed off. Use this as a base though, as all bumpers might be a bit different.

For the skid iself, basically I trimmed as much of the front as I could while still leavign teh front bend. This means that the bend itself has a radius on the front lip. I allwed the radius to end, and cut it right there. I beleive it was about 2" off, but again, just try to leave the front radius and trim the rest.

 

I'm super envious.

 

dang that is sexy. i am in love with ur truck.

 

Will you bob the bed next on your tacoma Barlowrs 06?

 

I have had several requests to measure how much i trimmed on the bud built skid install, so I have updated the write-up to include this. Let me know if there is anything else you guys need help with on it.

 

Na, my rig is for long hauls (expedition) traveling. By bobbing the bed, you are essentially removing usable space that I need (I am looking at ways to add space..roof rack is next). so the cons outweigh the pros on that mod. Now if I were a hardcore trail rig, I would..as we all know, our ladies have some pretty big @$$ behind them, but for now, my CBI bumper does enough to thin her out where it counts by getting me a better departure angle.

 

NICE BUILD!!!!!! I WISH I HAD YOUR MONEY SO I CAN DO THE SAME

 

OK first off, I want to give credit for this one, as I cannot take any credit. This idea was previously done by “DblD” in this thread: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/93807-ram-gps-mount.html

I really like his idea, so I stole it and took a few steps further. So, on to the write-up:

The Parts needed:
RAM Mount Garmin 60CSx Astro Cradle RAM-HOL-GA12U Model: RAM-HOL-GA12U
RAM Mount Diamond Plate with 1 inch Ball RAM-B-238U Model: RAM-B-238U
RAM Mount 0.25 inch NPT Thread with Single 1 inch Ball Model: RAM-B-218-1U
RAM Mount Short Arm B-Socket RAM-B-201U-A Model: RAM-B-201U-A
Garmin Cigarette Lighter Adapter Model: 010-10085-00
7/16 Fine Thread Bolt or threaded Rod
6 mm metric tap
6mm metric bolt or threaded rod

Steps:
First thing was to make the ballmount that interfaces with the trucks “ohh $hit” handle. This is where me and DblDs methods were a bit different. The threads that the ballmount comes with is 7/16 fine thread. I took a small threaded rod, cut it to length (about ¾” long) so that it will thread in and sit flush inside the ballmount. If you don’t have threaded rod, just cut the head off a bolt. Next, while it was still on the lathe, I drilled her right down the center and tapped it with a 6mm tap. DO NOT DRILL AND TAP ALL THE WAY THROUGH (make it a blind hole) otherwise your metric bolt will just thread into your mount and disappear before mating with the truck.
I then took my metric bolt (or threaded rod) chopped the head off and threaded it in so that it was about an inch or so sticking out:



Add some locktite and you are good to go
Now, remove the a-pillar from the truck (very easy..two bolts) so that you can route the charger cable. While it is off, Drill a hole to run the wire out so that it can reach your GPS. Then re-install the a-pillar using the new ballmount in place of the lower “ohh $hit” handle mounting bolt location:


In the picture above, you can see the charger wire going through the hole in the a-pillar.

Now, add the small arm and cradle and orient it how you like:



Next was to wire it, you can easily keep the cigarette lighter plug and just use that, however, I wanted to hardwire mine into my auxiliary fuse block. To do I routed it into my engine bay through the grommet in the fire wall. I then cut the cig lighter plug off so that it is just the wires.

NOTE THAT A 1.5A FUSE IS CONTAINED IN THE CIG LIGHTER PLUG, SO YOU MUST FUSE IT EXTERNALLY IF YOU REMOVE THE PLUG

I then routed it to the fuse block, cut it to length and added standard ring terminals:



All that is left is to plug it into the fuse block and fuse it. I used a 2A fuse (I will try to find a proper 1.5 “ fuse that will fit later, but 2A is the smallest I had laying around):



And the final product, as seen from the driver’s seat:

 

Beautiful Truck. You have provided some inspirational ideas in this build, and your attention to detail is fantastic!!