As we type this we have less than one month left till this truck needs to be ready to drive halfway across the country to go wheeling for a week on the toughest trails. We're tired, stressed, and hoping that all the parts arrive in time. We have more work than days left, and we've decided to once again give up sleep and health in exchange for coffee and four-wheeling. Just another day trying to put together a magazine and a wild project truck at the same time.
As usual, things can get out of hand quickly when you start a simple project. You try to change the oil and end up installing a winch, you try to repack your wheel bearings and end up with a new axle, and we even know guys who started installing a lift kit only to end up tearing their whole truck apart (we promise we'll get it out of the garage soon, Grandma). The same thing happened with our Ultimate Adventure truck this year.
We originally planned on this '01 Tacoma to be a basic buildup that anyone could copy, and then we got in the shop, and as you know, once you start it's hard to just go halfway. Let's just say that it's gonna be really cool, and we promise to do some more cheap-truck stuff when this thing is done, but for now we're gonna build the coolest Tacoma we can. We hope you can take some of our work and apply it to your ride, and we hope Congress soon passes the 36-hour day initiative 'cause we need more time.
We continued the buildup at 4Wheelers Supply in Phoenix, where the rear bed cage came together quickly when we decided how we wanted the 2x17-inch Bilstein Rockcrawler coilover reservoir shocks to mount. We will eventually build an enclosed bed within the cage to store camping gear and tools. The bed cage ties into the internal cage and is made of 1 3/4-inch by 0.120-wall DOM tubing. Where the cage goes into the cab it is welded to the body. If it were a show truck we would have to put in a nice, tight grommet, but since it's a wheeler we welded it up. We aren't worried about cracking as the cage is strong, and for us body damage is cool. | 
Where the cage goes into the cab it is welded to the body. If it were a show truck we would have to put in a nice, tight grommet, but since it's a wheeler we welded it up. We aren't worried about cracking as the cage is strong, and for us body damage is cool. | 
Next we took the saw to the frame and bobbed off a few inches. This rock racer ain't gonna be haulin' hay so the bed is just there mostly for aesthetics, sponsor stickers, and hauling essentials. |
With the frame shortened, we tore the bed apart and shortened just the bed sides by 12 inches and removed the inner supports to lighten things up a bit. To bob the sides, just mark two parallel vertical lines with tape and cut out the middle section. Then spot-weld the halves together. Leave an inch between the welds to get a warp-free finish. The bed sides needed some hammer work to get the body lines just perfect, and then the top inner edge was folded over to get rid of any sharp edges. | 
With the sides bobbed we also trimmed the wheelwells a bit to clear our 37-inch BFGoodrich Krawlers. The fuel door looked like an obstacle at first, but we eventually trimmed and folded over the corner of the door so it would work as original, but be able to clear the tire. | 
By now we knew where the front and rear axles would sit so we sent our driveshafts to Tom Wood's Custom Driveshafts to be modified for length and given 1350 U-joints at the pinion yokes. In the rear we measured both for a one-piece shaft as shown, and for a two-piece by keeping the rear carrier bearing. As you can see, running the carrier bearing greatly improves ground clearance for the driveshaft, so we went that route. |