Big Body Truck Co. LLC - Flatbeds for Midsize Trucks

Thank you! I definitely appreciate the kind words! I think having a camper on one of these things would be sick! My business partner will have the opportunity to toss one on his over the holidays but I would love to throw one on mine to do some field testing with it. If any of you know any SoCal vendors who could spare a camper for the weekend, let me know

• Water Tank and Fuel Tanks - there is definitely space for a water / gas tank under the bed. On a Long Bed, there is a really nice area just behind the cab that has a lot of space. On a Standard Bed, a water / gas tank could easily get located underneath the main tray assembly. I think the shape of the tanks themselves will dictate where they would go best!
• Storage Wise, I have just been using an off the shelf toolbox on the top of the bed. For me, it is the cheapest way to get good waterproof storage. The biggest part of our ethos is getting an affordable flatbed solution out in the world and letting people modify to whatever they like! Personally, I will be investigating some more waterproof storage solutions on the topside in my free time. Likely nothing immediate on my end due to (hopefully) a whole lot of time working on other people's orders. In the more immediate I am going to design a drawer for the space under the tray. I think there is so much value of using up that under-belly space and with 7"x28"x80" of space I can't afford not to!
• As for the battery and electrical panel, I can't say that I have planned on using something like this BUT I think there could be a lot of ways to handle this with a camper! I have a friend who runs dual battery with solar and just has everything stored in a waterproof box in his truck bed. I think something similar could be done here, maybe this gets located under the bed or somewhere near the front rack?
• ARB air tank should be easy to find space for and it is super easy to hang things off the underside of the bed using the T-Slots. I want to move mine out of the engine bay and place it somewhere on the flatbed in the future.
• In addition to all of these, I think there is a good opportunity to get a camper / canopy designed for a standard truck bed but fill the voids typically created by the wheel wells with toolboxes. I have thought a lot about all of the setup possibilities and I think that can give the best of both worlds - all of your critical tools / batteries / electrical panel stay with you when you want to remove the camper and now you have a nice open area on the deck of the truck for whatever you may want. If I could have it my way I would test this thing out with every camper / toolbox / RTT setup under the sun to give people all sorts of inspiration. In any case I will keep this thread going with whatever I can get my hands on!

If you have any questions specifically once you make more decisions on the route you are going with Canopy / 4 Wheel Campers, please reach out and let us know! We want to work hand in hand with our customers as they create their dream setup.

 

Here is a little sneak peak of the fender flares and doors prior to powdercoat:

• Doors are 8ga aluminum
• Fender Flares are steel double wides, chopped down and spliced back together into a single with a double radius and a very very small flat section. Straight from Amazon. There is a single wide on Amazon that is perfect for 33s but not perfect for 35s. I used them on the first prototype and had to chop them down and stomp on em pretty good to get them to stuff right

 

perfect man, you've solved the fender problem... as long as the bed sticks out as far as the tires do.

 

Right now these stick out about 2" from the bed. I have always wanted to strike the balance of not too wide lookin in the rearview but not too much stickout of the fender flare. I think this is a great combo! The first prototype had a little over 3" of stickout on the fenders, its amazing what an inch can do visually.

For reference I am running a -10 offset wheel with 35"x10.5" tires

Here are some down the line pics:

 

it looks fine from those angles man. Great job. Sorry don't mean to be picky, I just don't want you to catch any unwanted attention and be forced to redo your hard work. Can't wait to see the end product.

 

Oh I didn't think you were being picky at all! I just wanted to provide the details!

 

Here is a tasty update with some photos of the powder coated doors and fenders with mud flaps! It is lookin real nice if I say so myself. Scroll to the end for a little extra eye candy

 

This is awesome! Any plans for it to take a camper (gfc like)?

 

Short Answer: We do not have plans to do this for a camper that mounts on the top rails of a stock bed specifically as of yet.

Longer Answer: Yes, I do think there is a way to do this. I think that a capable DIYer would be able to make something like this work BUT the main thing that hurts us here is dimensions. The top rail of the 3rd gen's bed are around 58" - 60" wide depending how you measure. I think a good sweetspot for flatbed width is right around the 72" mark. Depending on how campers that mount to the top rails of the bed actually land on the bed rails there is a 10"-14" bust in terms of the widths matching up. It would be very possible to frame T-Slot rails (think about almost framing a curb) at this width on top of the flatbed to make a camper like this work.

I will say these ideas are what we are all about though in that our goal is to get you the platform to make things happen! We would love for somebody to try this out and we can help them along the way to problem solve. Even if you have 5-6" spare on each side there are plenty of cool things you could mount and attach in that space. Say you frame the rails and add a molle panel on the outside and use that to mount recovery boards, tools, snowboards, whatever! There are so many options.

 

1) Bobbing the bed - I've seen a few questions about making a short bed into a long bed, so let me ask the opposite. It looks like I could weld in a new cross member, then chop the frame at the rear leaf spring hangers. Cutting extruded aluminum is easy, but what about a custom side door length?
2) Drawer under the tray? I'm seeing a lot of unused space that would be perfect for a drawer. Plans to make your own, or do you have one that would fit?
3) Under bed toolboxes? Several other companies offer tool boxes for under the bed - are you planning to make them, or have you found one that fit?
4) Canopy/storage - Full? Half? Please?

 

I'm absolutely interested for a weld it yourself kit.

 

1. You could bob the bed of a long bed. Based on bed mount locations of a long bed, you will lose the rear sets of bed mounts leaving you 4 bed mounts instead of 6. As for the doors, these are just 8ga aluminum so they can be ripped down in similar fashion as the aluminum extrusion if not trimmed to size prior to install.
2. Drawer wise - there is a lot of vertical space variance depending on how much travel you have, your tire size and the frame of the truck specifically. For example, on our other prototype (1st gen tundra on 2" lift w/ 33's) there is only about 3-4" of space so it was not worth it to add in a drawer. On mine (2.5" lift on 35s, 3rd gen tacoma) I have around 7" as of present and will be designing a drawer for it but we are not sure if we will be offering a drawer. With variance in available height and bed length as part of the DIY nature we have decided to focus on the platform itself with the ability to DIY things as needed. Once that drawer is made I will definitely show my work!
3. As for under bed boxes, we do not have plans on manufacturing these as of yet. There are other companies that offer them but they are at a considerable cost and we would leave these decisions up to the DIYer.
4. Canopy wise - again, not something we are planning to offer based on cost. Other manufacturers make them, our flatbed can be used to mount them but we are leaving that up to the DIYer.

Check out Kit Campers on instagram - he uses t-slot channel to achieve a camper style set up. We haven't designed anything like this specifically but I know my handy DIYers can get projects like this done!

When it comes to full flatbeds, canopies and under bed boxes, manufacturers who have been in the game for a long time producing flatbeds and ute trays get to be at a very high price point. I absolutely love the look of what they make and respect everything that they do as they served as a large source of inspiration for us. Whether its Mits Alloy or Bowen Customs I have to say I love every bit of their work but simply put we wanted to do something different for the DIYer to allow them to use their skills and creativity to create things that function similarly at a lower price point.

 

Fill out a contact form on our Website and let us know so we can reach out to you!

 

Love it. Great answers. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.
I'm more interested in bobbing a short bed. @EatSleepTacos did his a while back, and I think this flatbed would work well for what I'm envisioning.

 

Started my project. Going to take a few more weeks but I have a start and the spare is where I wanted it! Thanks for your help earlier this month.

 

I need this kit in my life I think

 

I posted the link in the other flatbed thread too, but they have several kits on the website now with prices:
https://bigbodytruckco.com/products/rack?variant=47182226424116

 

Thanks for the post!! I have had my head down on the fabrication side of things and was planning in creating a full information thread with updated pricing once we were done with some graphic design and website design items. In any case, yes! We have pricing for the kits, we have multiple kits and are continuing to grind on some more designs based on feedback from customers.

I will be at King Shocks Toy Drive in SoCal on the 16th, if you want to check out my truck in real life, please come through! I will post all of this information on socials as well.

Thanks for all of the love on this thread, I appreciate all of you.

 

Do you have measurements for the under bed storage area? Would something like this fit?
https://www.crescenttool.com/produc...l-drawer-storage-24w-x-9h-x-48l-5-deep-drawer

Could I drop the spare tire below the deck, similar to @SMKYTXN ?
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2011-flatbed-build.342771/page-27#post-9601560

 

1. Yes! Something like that could definitely fit, your only real constraining dimension would be the bed bolt mount locations. With the mounting feet installed like they are on mine I have about 30" clear.

2. Yes! You would have to get the tray somewhat high off of the frame but anything is possible!