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I have decided to move a long lasting thread over to the Yotatech site for more community conversations. The current site its on has slowed down so much over the years that I feel like I am talking to myself half the time. I am hoping to get more input and knowledge through the yotatech community.
A little background...
The truck was originally built by Michael from a little stocker and has spent the past seven years being transformed into a reliable crawler. I then picked it up from him and have been continuing the progress of rebuilding and modifying the vehicle since August of 2018. I believe his goals were more suited towards the rock crawler aspect where mine are more towards a daily driver that can do the trails and go camping.
I wasn't sure how owning a single cab truck would go, but the lack of interior space has made it much more pleasant to own. This is the first vehicle that I have owned where I do not throw stuff in the back seat and then forget about it... Whatever goes in the truck on a daily basis comes out that same day. The seats have pouches behind them in which I put a few items (winch controller, fluids, tire wrench, etc...), just enough space but not too much to over clutter. Just the essentials.
All of my camping gear goes in the back on the slider and is strapped down. This was the mod I was planning to do on the 4runner but thankfully kept the sliders for this truck. I use the slider bed just about every week for different things, and because its easy to load and unload, there is never 'trash' left in the truck.
How tall are you? Do you fit in the cab okay or wish you had more room? Do you find the truck comfortable? Well as comfortable as a solid axle truck on leaf springs could be? Ha
How tall are you? Do you fit in the cab okay or wish you had more room? Do you find the truck comfortable? Well as comfortable as a solid axle truck on leaf springs could be? Ha
I am 5' 11', 170 lbs... Its a little tighter than my 4runner due to the seat unable to slide back any farther, but it is definitely not uncomfortable. But it is definitely not a 1 size fits all type of truck. I also drive with sneakers like I have with any vehicle with a clutch, but I cannot imagine driving this with work boots, even if it were an automatic. I have some non-hiking boots that I use to wear on camping trips, but can no longer trail ride with them on. They are large, waterproof, and comfortable but I can only put them after I have officially picked a spot for the night. I am currently looking for hiking boots that are smaller and not to aggressive that I can drive with but also get out and rummage around in.
As far as leaf springs...... I can only try to improve upon until I make the leap to a 3 link down the road!
As of today, I was able to mock up the shock hoops and billies. I was fighting a few different issues... one being the reservoir line shooting out of the top of the shock which was interfering with the hoop. One fix was to pull the hoop out farther, BUT that also kicked the top of my shock out which was not going to fly. The other fix was to rotate the bracket so the shock would bolt farther down on the hoop and I could bring the hoop back in towards the vehicle, BUT that reduced my up-travel significantly... So I found a happy medium, gave myself a 1/4" between the reservoir line and the hoop and placed the hoop so the shock was at 0* vertically. This gives me about 4" of up travel.
Now I just need to weld them up, paint, and then weld them to the frame. I also plan on adding bracing from the original shock mount to the hoop for additional support hence why I left the majority of the original mount intact.
Shocks are in. Much improved ride quality. More stable over all. Still have the axle jumping side to side on a really rough roads due to the leafs and no way of tracking the axle.... but can notice a big difference when hitting bumps and drops around 40 mph to 70 mph. Corning has changed a bit, its actually a bit more unpredictable oddly enough. The truck use to body roll into corners (for example, taking an on ramp to the highway) and would hold a consistent curve, but with the 7100s, it has reduced the body roll (good) but now steers unpredictably throughout the corner (bad, possibly has something to do with the hydro assist as well....). Sometimes it will start to turn sharp quickly during a corner and will have to be re corrected within the corner even though my steering input didn't really change. Maybe the shocks trying to unload during a long corner? My old shocks didn't unload at all... you push them in, they stay at that position, where as the 7100s are 255/70 valving and will fully extend.
Purchased an XXL hammock rain fly a few months back since I was getting rained on when loading/unloading the truck. Picked up a telescoping squeegee pole this weekend on the cheap so I could finally rig up a rear canopy for the truck during camp.
I've been wanting to build a rear-mount tire carrier/tailgate like that for a while now. Except I think I want to build it so it mounts and latches like the factory tailgate, in place of the tailgate.
My main concern is the weight of the tire wearing the sheet metal in the bed out too fast.
I've been wanting to build a rear-mount tire carrier/tailgate like that for a while now. Except I think I want to build it so it mounts and latches like the factory tailgate, in place of the tailgate.
My main concern is the weight of the tire wearing the sheet metal in the bed out too fast.
Your truck is bad ass!
Mine is a swing down, so it gets most of its strength from the bottom two mounts which are welded to my frame/bumper plate. With the upper mounts attached to the bed, it actually gives the bed sides more strength when upright, and when dropped, its only putting stress on the lower frame. But I assume you know this already...
I can understand the reasoning behind your concept and your concern with strength using the original lower hinges of the tailgate and having it latch to the original upper pins just like the rear tailgate was originally mounted. You would definitely have to mount the lower mounts similar to how mine is mounted (directly to the frame), I don't think the bed would be able to handle the stress/weight of the carrier as it is currently designed as you suspect. As for the top latch pins (that's if you have the latch pins and not the double handle style), I believe that this would suffice with no issues. The only issue would be if you backed in to something and possibly bending the pins one way or another. But if it is taking the place of the tailgate, you could also move the center of gravity of the tire in towards the bed more where my tire has to stick out past the tailgate.
Either way, sounds like a sweet concept and would eliminate dropping the tire AND the tailgate.
05-17-2019, 01:31 PM
