DIY: Bobbed Second Gen Tacoma

This thread will serve as a picture dump of me bobbing the bed on my 2nd gen. For those that don't know, it's the process of cutting out a chunk of bed behind the rear axle to help with departure angle offroad.

Let's get started. This whole process took me about 7 weeks, just slowly chipping away at it. I didn't keep track of my time, but I probably have 70-100 hours into this.

Some people have asked me "Why not swap a short bed on?". The length difference between a LB and SB is right behind the cab and I would have the same overhang over the rear tires.





The idea had been in my head for awhile, and @singletrack_ftw finally pushed me over the edge. Thanks you crazy bastard.


I cut 14" out of my bed. This put it right around short bed length. The original plan was to put a softopper on but I've since changed my mind, for now at least.






To make the most even cut I could, I cut a piece of metal bar stock to 14" long and used that as a guide to make a pair of perfectly spaced lines.





For the bed portion I used a circular saw and sawzall






To rejoin the composite material, I used 1/8" stainless steel plates and rivets. It was hard as shit to get the bed to join neatly, so it looks pretty shitty. It's covered by a bed mat though, so you'd never know. Thanks to Joe at Mobtown Offroad for cutting these plates out on his plasma table.
















With all the welding that'd be taking place on the rear bumper I used it as an excuse to upgrade to a 240v welder.







Used a 3M eraser wheel to remove the old decals. These things work great.





Got started on the bumper after that. The main tube is 3"x4"x1/4", the mounting plates are 1/4", and the side wings are 3/16" plate. I have Archive Hammer Hangers so I stole the mounting bolts for that to bolt my bumper on.






Ended up redoing the corners so it was less boxy.

















While I was working on that, I also got started on the bodywork. Originally I was going to only do the seam, and repaint the bedside. Then I decided to completely coat the entire truck in Durabak smooth bedliner. This would help hide some bodywork inconsistencies, as well as allow me to weld all the flare holes shut.








Mounted license plate.







Bed rails are just neatly trimmed. I will build steel bedside caps at some point to eliminate that seam.




Edit:


I made new bed caps to eliminate the seam.







I also welded my antenna hole shut.









Mmmm progress







Back to the bumper. I added some diamond plate up top to close the gap between bumper and tailgate. This also functions as a useable step when climbing in the bed.







Since my hammer hangers would be so visually exposed now, I rebuilt my cross bar to tuck up out of the way.







Redid my hitch since I didn't like how far it protruded.







She thicc




And finally onto paint.






Once that was done I coated the diamond plate in a rattle can bedliner for grip as a step. It worked brilliantly.


















Got the bedliner in the mail. QC approved.







And now it's time for bedliner. I chose to roll this on because I didn't want to mask off my entire garage.















The finished product.

 

That looks awesome! Great work!

 

And here I was thinking I was going to get some work done today.. lolz

 

Imagine the departure clearance if you didn't have the access cab now.

 

Like if I had a regular cab?

 

Exactly. *hint hint*

 

Haha noooo. I love my access cab. I have my fridge and tools in the backseat. Everyone knows you can’t go wheeling without ice cold Dr Pepper.

 

Incredible. That is a ton of high quality work, great job!@

 

You needed that thick ass bumper to keep the backend down! Looks freakn' awesome! The Toyota Tacoma "Brat" edition!

 

*Recalibrating chart to accommodate surge in badassery

 

I ended up pulling some leafs to soften up the rear pack. I had 4.5” of lift after I took all the stuff off my bed.

 

Did like the Matchbox Racer look tho (for a moment).

 

Nice work Randy

 

Thanks, I'm so glad I'm done with this project. Felt like I was living in the garage these past couple months.

 

Really an impressive bit of work. Both the fab skills and the balls to chop off a chunk of your truck! And to think you did all that on your old welding table! (never fails, finally make the big welding table AFTER you finish a huge project!) Hats off. How hard was it to weld the body panels back together? I haven't tried to mig stuff that thin. I've heard it's tricky.

 

That looks really nice. FYI, the bed is composite so you can get some fiberglass and fill it and reinforce where you made the cut. You can get some black dye for the resin so your bed will still look normal.

What are you using for tie down rails in the back of the bed?

 

Are you referring to those silver rails? Those are called L track. It's a cool product. For the spare tire I just have some 1/2" bolts running through the bed.

 

I know right. AND getting the plasma cutter after the fact. This wasn't my first time welding stuff that thin, as I've tubbed a couple firewalls too. It wasn't TOO bad. The biggest thing is clean metal and minimal gap. It's just a bunch of tack welds so you don't introduce too much heat into it.

 

Do you have a build thread?? I would like to see how this piece of history made it to this " budget friendly" point!!