Box Rocket - 2003 TRD Doublecab

Thank you. The truck still needs a few things but it's been a good one.

 

Trokita took this one last night on our quick run out to Rattlesnake. Thanks Arturo!

 

I've been looking for a trailer that size and shape since I saw yours. Sweet truck dude. Always like checking out your pics. The Golden Crack?? I knew a girl in college named....oh, nevermind.

 

Here's a shot of the trailer from moab last weekend.


And here's a link to the build thread.
http://forum.ih8mud.com/trailer-tech/264952-box-rocket-homemade-trailer-build.html

 

box rocket...your truck is absolutely beautiful...by far my favorite on TW. When I start building my truck to be a expedition/adventure style truck yours will be the inspiration.


After seeing the TG low-pro bumper on your rig, I am positive thats the bumper I will be going with...have you put it up to any abuse to test out how good it will hold up?

And I see you run the stock skids...any problems there?

 

The TG bumper is holding up fine.

The stock skids are taking some abuse and it shows. I need to pull the main skid off and pound out a few dents until I can get a real skidplate. Either a Budbuilt or a Skidrow, haven't decided

 

Just noticed this a couple days ago. If any of you are familiar with the Golden Spike trail in Moab, Utah you know that there are countless ledges to climb and drop off of on that trail. There was one ledge that I dropped off of that bit me. I came down HARD, and I mean HARD on my driver side slider. I got out to check everything and the slider was scratched and had just the slightest dent. It wasn't until I got home and was doing a more thorough check of stuff on the truck that i noticed the small dent in my rocket panel. My sliders have a little bit of clearance under the rockers but are pretty tight to the body. I've come down on them hard before but they've never flexed into the body. Just more evidence of how hard I hit this time. Oh well, you pay to play.

In hindsight I could have avoided this with better placement of the legs on the sliders. When I welded the sliders together I lined up the legs with the spreaders in the slider body. That left about 12" of slider forward of the leg. With as hard as I hit there was surely a lot of leverage on that forward portion of the slider. If I had put the front and back legs closer to the ends of the slider I don't think this would have happened.

 

How far are the legs spaced in between eachother?

 

I have the legs lined up with the spreaders in the slider.

 

Still thinking of making some bed racks?

 

love the truck!

 

Yes, it's still on the table but I won't be able to do much until the first of the new year. My "day job" is very busy and I have 3 other side jobs that will take me through the end of the year, at least. I already have one individual ready to pull the trigger on a rack, he's just waiting for me. There are others who have shown interest too. So I'm hoping to get to that in the next couple months.

 

Box just spent some time going over your build. By far the best tacoma on here. On your front bumper how hard was the install? From what ive seen its a straight bolt on. Guy at my local shop was telling me that there is a lot of fab work to be done. Besides the turn signals i would have to wire to the new trailgear leds is there anything else to do? He made me suspicious when he started to talk about an arb bumper instead. Trying to upsell i guess. Your advise would be greatly appreciated.

 

yeah...sounds like he was just trying to sell you a bumper that costs $400 more.

IIRC the only trucks you have to mod at all are 98-00, you have to cut off the from horns that mount to the OEM bumper. Thats it. Other than that it utilizes stock bumper mounts and the stock recovery hook mount holes


And you dont even need to use TG's LED signals. Just move the turn signals to your corner lights, and done.

 

All you do is bolt it on. I trimmed up some of the metal that hangs down from I believe the radiator support. I relocated my turn signals to my side markers. I also swapped out my washer fluid reservoir for one from a 1987 toyota truck but you don't really need to do that, I don't believe boxrocket has.

 

Yep. one of the nice things about the TG bumper is that it is completely bolt on. There is no additional fabrication necessary, unless you add the lightbar. You will have to figure something out with the turn signals, I relocated mine to the side markers, but that's really it. On my bumper I did add the top plate which is a little bit of fabrication, but wasn't too bad. But that's purely personal preference, clearly not a requirement for this bumper.

I did not relocate my washer bottle, but used some old inner fender liner I had lying around to cover/protect the front of it. Just rivited it in place.

There is probably more fabrication necessary with an ARB bumper since you need to do the endcap mod to mount it correctly with adequate strength.

 

Thanks! Yeah I thought it was shady when he started talking about all the mods he would have to do. From looking at your build thread it did look like a straight bolt on. I feel more comfortable about getting the tg bumper. It looks great and does the job for half the price! Thanks for the advise guys!

 

Straight from TG's site description of the Rock Defense bumper for Tacomas.

"Trail-Gear is proud to introduce the first of many Tacoma bumpers that we will be adding to our product line. The Rock Defense™ Tacoma Bumper will fit Tacoma’s from 95 to 2004. All Trail-Gear bumpers are constructed with 1.75" x .120" wall, 1035 DOM material. This bumper is a true "bolt on" product, no cutting or welding required"

 

yup, i read that but when the sales guy was talking he made it seem like there was a lot of mods to do to the existing parts on the truck. When I said really?! He said the labor alone would be a coupe of hours. I'm guessing he was really trying to push the ARB bumper. Anyways I'm going to order it and do it myself. Thanks again.

 

I had to grind a little on one of the mounts because it was a little tight, otherwise fitment was great. After I painted mine, it took all of about 30 min with my 10 year old to install it. I've had it off and on a few times when I built the top plate. Peice of cake by yourself.

Pulling the stock bumper is no big thing. Nothing needs to be done to the existing parts on the truck, unless you decide to trim the stock bumper brackets by the fenderwells. Even then, it's 2 min.

You need to find a different shop. These guys clearly have no idea what they're talking about. Or worse yet, they are just lying to you upsale a different product. If that's the case, I would have ZERO trust in them ever touching my truck. If they can lie about small stuff like this, I can pretty much guarantee they'll cut corners on bigger stuff later on. Bad news.