Well, for cristmas I gave my soon to be brother in law free labor for a rear tube bumper, but first I had to get my pile out of the way (reason for being soo late,lol). But, after some discussion he really wanted to bob his bed at some point down the road and was worried the bumper I am going to do might have to be totaly revamped after the fact. Well, after alot of thought, and looking at the tacoma bed setup, and the fact that since these are becoming more popular (the tacoma's) that I had better start learning these things (hoping in the next year to get my own shop going). So, I called him and told him my big plan, needless to say, he was a bit excited... So, early saturday morning he shows up. We rip the bed liner out, and wash the tons of crud out of the bed...

Damn these are long



All the crap removed and ready to start playing

 

Here is the first cut line (68" from the front edge of the bed)..



I just used the sawzall with a 6" blade to cut the sides down to the bed surface, and then marked across the bed from the cut lines. I just grabbed the plasma for a quick cut. I am still a little jittery with the plasma for some dump reason, so a ferfect cut wasn't as important as the bed sides (plus, the bed bottom is only a single layer)


And look, I made a good mess of a nice rig, ha ha ha

 

So with the bed lopped off, I lopped the frame rails off right at the end of the rear shacle mount. Now, he wanted to take as much off as possable, but I came up with 11" easy being removed with no cross member work or any major reconstruction of the bed. And 11" also if my measuremenst were correct, put the frame rails about 1/2" in front of the panel on the bed that sits below where the tailgate bolts...

So with that in mind, measured the bed again, and started cutting..



A tidbit of info, once you get down into the bed, clamp a piece of metal on the top of the rail, will help with the zitters you get from the sawzall..

While I was cutting, I gave jason (soon to be hopefully brother in law,lol) the job of prepping the tail.

 

And here we have 11" of junk (I know, some of us would just call the bed and most the cab junk too,lol)



And here we have the bed cut and ready for some assembly after jason does some prep work (while he was doing this, I was working on my other brother in laws rig welding him up a spool,lol)



So, after some time of welding, smoke, blowing holes, a few choice words, and some more smoke, the turd, I mean sheet metal was fully welded on...

One nice thing I did find that I had not noticed with earlier toys, being able to re-use the rear bed mount. It laid on top fo the frame perfectly, just had to blow a couple of holes and it bolted right bad up...

 

hey looks good so far, keep us posted on how she turns out, i am gonna be in the process of painting my truck in about a week and i was thinking of bobbing the bed nut not sure yet
cody

 

And here is what it looked like when done...



I wanted to spend some time grinding and so on, but he thought it looked good as it was (those who know me, would know I would be chompin at the bit for perfection,lol)...

One thing I did find out, and something I didn't notice til I was done, was the lower body line. Even though its straight across, the bow of the bed (farther back it got, less of a bow it had) caused the lower body lines not to fully match up, sat about 3/8-1/2" off. The upper body line, which ended about 1" into the area that was cut out(Which I knew about before hand) didn't turn out too bad with some light hammer work... So now that this is done, next will be to build a rear bumper for it here soon...

 

Just hack into it

 

Wow that looks great!
How did the plan view (top view) turn out?

That's amazing you can just whip that up and make that happen. Very impressive.
Your bumper should cover up that lower bodyline so you're ok I think

 

turned out pretty good...

I have a few ideas for the bumper, just need to get a couple stickes of 1.5" .120 dom and get awn with that part...

 

it almost looks like the size of the tacoma double cabs bed... actually, it should be around that same size now...

 

Thats one thing I forgot to measure, at a quick glance, the wheel well is about the middle of the bed(equal lengths front/rear of the wells)....

 

Wow, nice job, Crash!

ChrisCo

 

Two words: departure angle!

 

looks awesome... dont u love cutting things up?

good work btw

 

bob

\Bob\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bobbed; p. pr. & vb. n. Bobbing.] [OE. bobben. See Bob, n.] 1. To cut short; as, to bob the hair, or a horse's tail.


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=bob

 

rugby10, shortbeds still have a lot of rear overhang reducing the angle of depature that you could get hung up on an obstacle or ledge on.... i beleive his truck is a 6 foot bed, and that is as shortbed as you can get in his configuration... the tacoma double cab ahs a 5 foot bed, but its a whole differnt thing, its wheelwell is at about the front of the bed, not the middle like the above bobbed bed

 

Lookin good as your work always does Crash!!!

 

Did you "back" the seam when you welded (tacked & tacked & tacked) the bed back together?? of just butt weld it?

Does it "creak" if you open the tail gate and stand/jump on it?

My Tacoma bobs take about 6 hours. How much time you got in that one?

My 2 bobs on Tacomas were 12.5" (mine) and 13" (Sloth's).
Here's pics of Sloth's 13" bob. http://www.r65.org/tacoma/bedbob/
My site is down so I can't show you my bed bob write up.

BTW: Why'd you use a sawsall? The rough edges cause too much prep work to get it back together nicely. Either a plasma cutter or cuttin wheels work best.

 

Looks kinda funny but function over form generally is a rule when off roading.

 

I just butt welded the bed, and its fully welded, no pansie ass tack welds The bed makes no noise, and with being able to re-use the rear mount, I think that totaly stiffened it up.. The sawzall actually IMO worked best, if you know what you are doing, you can make a single cut, and just have to remove the paint to weld in back up, and I was easily able to achieve this on the sides, zero prep except remove the paint. Only spots I needed to prep the metal was where I had used the plasma, and that was my own fault, had it turned up to high causing bubling of the matal, but that was easily takin care of.. With working on 2 rigs, took me about 5 hours on the bed.

WHy bob the bed, like shane said, departure and to help weaving thru trees, get rid of that tail helps from whacking it against trees. Granted, I would rather have tossed the bed and built a full awn tubular deal, but he's still a gree noob so that will come later on down the road..