BayAreaTaco's Expo Crawler. Custom 1 ton SAS!

Thanks. I'm afraid I'm as strapped for time as BoxRocket is (reason why I had to build mine), but I can tell anyone what parts they need and how to!

I think the rear bumper is the only thing I have now that Mr. BayAreaTaco doesn't...well aside from a S/C!

 

Yaaaarg don't mention that word...still waiting for my relentless DIY rear

 

looks awesome! How much did you trim for the rubber?

 

Just the standard pinch weld mod, I completely removed my fender flares and the removable inner fender liners. Soon I will be tubing the firewall and cutting the fenders though!

 

Had a really busy mod weekend I installed weather tech floor liners, monstaliner DIY bedliner kit and crawlorado hood blackout. The directions for all these things are on their websites so I won't bore you with those details. Feel free to ask any questions though.



monstaliner is a great product, the kit was very good the only things I had to buy was another scuff pad, some 3m prep spray, and a mask.

Take your time to do the prep correctly and remove all oils, I used 3M pinstriping tape to run the edge on the bed it worked great.

It was a little tricky to get used to rolling it on, sometimes it was to thick and hard to get the right texture but I think it came out okay.

FYI if you are thinking of doing this I only used about 3/4 of a gallon with 2 full coats and 3 coats on the bed floor, so just buy the 1 gallon kit.

 

I have some teaser pics of the mounts and some of the craftsmanship of the bed cage my buddy is building me

This is how it will mount to the frame, the portion on the right will be welded to the frame. The solid insert it plug welded to the tube it is threaded so the bolt can pass through the top portion and thread into the part that is welded to the frame. The bed cage will be coped and welded onto the top portion of the mounts and the whole thing will lift off with 6 bolts





Bottom right will be against the back of the bed

 

DAMMMMMNNNNN!

 

Really love your truck bro! Super clean, and very tastefully built!

 

I love the idea of a bed cage that does not take up the entire bed.

 

Nice work man, great upgrades. Looking forward to the bed cage posts!

 

oh shucks.

thank you!

me too man, that was my biggest stipulation was not really loosing bed space, a big pet peeve of mine is when people have a truck that they cannot use as a truck anymore. Might as well buy a 4runner right?

thanks! I will update right now thanks for reminding me.

 

Alright so my bedcage version 1.0 is done for now! Save for some paint that I will hopefully get to this weekend before it rusts.

Materials used.
1.5'' 1020 DOM
1" 1020 DOM
1/4'' cold rolled plate.
16ga plate
1'' solid stock used for the plugs
assorted grade 8 bolts
shock mounts are axle tube mounts from ruff stuff specialties.
12" stoke fox 2.0 remote reservoir.
SWAG offroad ammo cans

my friend Cody who did pretty much the whole bedcage himself an I made this cage, I helped with most of the weld joint prep for the finals welds along with mechanical help and design help. Hes an amazing fabricator I am lucky to be his friend! If anyone is interested his company is called 1/4 Tilt Kreations @25tiltkreations on instagram.

I really did not want to lose much bedspace so we tried to follow the lines of the bed as much as possible and I think the outcome is pretty rad and unique as well. The shock mounts will soon be double shear but this took an insane amount of work and time as we both have full time jobs, I know the mounts are not ideal so please dont tell me how the need to be changed or the bolts will bend, i know that. Eventually this will tie into a bedrack so it is all tied into the frame and a lot stronger than a rack just on the tops of the bed rails.

the whole thing is removed with 6 bolts!

the mounts...





mocking up the upper rails and some tube gussets


after removing the bed (6 bolts, fuel filler neck retainer, tailight harness) we double checked that the standoffs had been tacked in the correct spots. Basically I took the paint off the top of the frame with a wire brush on a die grinder through the holes in the bed while the bed was still on. we thank put the bedcage back in and tacked it into place, the cage was than unbolted leaving the tacked standoffs on the frame.We couldnt think of any other way to achieve this without removing the bed more than once. Side note I would recommend 3 people when removing the bed, 2 works like we did but 3 would be better.





detail of the shock mounts, the e-brake guides and brake line bracket on the drivers side all had to be moved. In order to keep the shocks as close to the frame rails as possible and to preserve the most bed space and ground clearance this had to happen. the shocks are pretty near vertical which is the most efficient way to run a shock.


with the shock installed. I wish I had taken before pictures so you could see how subtle the changes are, and how factory it ended up looking. If you want go out to your driveway and look at your non abs axle and compare to these and you will see what was changed.








sorry this pic sucks




didn't measure for this bolt properly, switched it out for the proper size, albeit now its a bit long but whatever haha.



I am waiting on some reservoir mounting kits, for the time being i just ziptied them to the straight lower bar.





Hope you like it as much as I do let me know what you think!
I will update with a few more pictures tomorrow hopefully!

 

That came out awesome dude. Is something like this necessary if you want to run your shock through your bed? Or it's necessary because you want to retain bed space without a giant triangulation in the center?

 

Necessary, No. Basically that's just it when you triangulate them and run them through the bed it basically kills the use of the bed and you are left with Honda trunk sized space in front. I think some people run shocks through the wheel wells but as far as I can tell the leafs are in the way I'm not sure how that would work. Also I think you could get away with some simple shock hoops with some gussets by themselves if you wanted the shocks in the same location I'm running them. We are building a rear cage that will extend off this and protect the cab that why we went so crazy and big with it. Think softtopper but steel tube and not flimsy at all, that's what I'm going for next

 

Forgot to tag ya

 

Ahhh okay. What are your plans for the truck? It's essentially mid travel now correct? Do you want LT? or just crazy droop?

 

I guess yeah mid travel is kind of a loosely used term on this site, the mid travel thread describes my suspension as MT but seems like everyone in there has what I would call LT so it's kind of confusing. Definitely not going LT, if I feel like dropping that much money I will do a SAS, which will happen at some point. For now I just wanted a suspension that would perform well on and offroad since this is my only vehicle. My goal is to make it an overland expedition vehicle not so much a rock crawler because I love camping. Also I live really close to the rubicon so another goal was to build an ifs truck that could make it through relatively easily. Next up is rear bumper, gears, tcase.

 

That bed cage is so awesome... I love that it leaves the majority of the bed usable, and you can still load a motorcycle in the back! I would love something like that on my truck one day.

 

thanks man! that was my intention to leave as much space as possible!. got it painted today.

 

Love it