Home built DIY 1st gen Tacoma flatbed Ute tray!

what's up guys i'm so excited for today's episode it's been quite a while since i've uploaded a video but it's not because i haven't been busy i actually went on a trip i've got so many things done on the truck it's been re-geared and now has a front locker and i took the whole back of it off and made a flatbed i think it's going to be something like this with a gas strut and so yeah a flatbed i am so stoked on this and i'm going to i've got to explain why i did it i'm going to show you how i did it for the most part i didn't run the camera the whole time because i was just like i couldn't figure it out i couldn't do both you know i was like making it in the air while we're not making it in the air you know what i mean i'm like trying to design it cut it weld it and i didn't know what i'm doing so putting a camera on i put it on a bunch of times i ended up being like oh that didn't work out oh that didn't work out and i redid it and redid it it wouldn't have made total sense to like film everything so hopefully this works i'm gonna show you what i did and i'll show you some video clips of how i did it at some of these points all the major points for the most part but yes flatbed so let's talk about why i made this so i want to talk about why i made this but first i'll just give you a little sneak peek of something that i like about it um more on that in a minute but yeah why did i take off the setup i had and make a whole new new setup the setup that i had is working so well the camper shell the rack the awning the traction boards on top the space for the roto packs uh the space to sleep for one person the tire carrier the full custom bumper holy crap i did so much work on my truck uh in my garage and i got it to the point where i was just like this is like it's perfect it's perfect for what i use it for and then i tore it all off and built something totally different so why did i do that well here's why basically that setup was working so well for myself but after i added anybody else to it like my son um who's grown up a little bit more now no one fits in them but oftentimes you know i'm in a family we're a close-knit family i want to hang out with my brothers or my brothers are like-minded and we want to do a trip together or whatever a lot of times these trips are like last minute um not planned so it's not like i know where i'm gonna camp i don't have a tent uh like a spot that i know is gonna be comfortable for the tent we show up like middle of the night oftentimes in the desert where i go um it's super windy or maybe it's the middle of winter or whatever i just love sleeping in a hard shell and the hard shell that i had on here the camper shell was awesome for just me um i could fit in there diagonally i've been in there in 20 degree weather with like 40 mile an hour winds i've been in downpour rain i've been uh in just like freezing cold with a zero degree bag it's awesome i could show up in the middle of the night crawl in the back sleep like a baby so i love that only thing is you can't fit more than just me in there now my son used to come with me when he was like the size of a hobbit he's now you know i don't know much bigger um and he doesn't fit back there anymore with me it's like claustrophobic so motivation to build a new thing after i had spent so much time on perfecting the one i already built was to be able to bring my son along again to be able to bring my wife to be able to bring a friend or one of my brothers because when i send it out there it's usually you know it's a couple days and it's just less like it doesn't sound quite as fun just do it by myself i'd rather share those experiences with um somebody so that is why i moved away from the camper shawl for me if you're a single dude um and want to do what i've been doing like just last minute trips that setup that i had i think is one of the best personally for the way that i use the truck and if you use the truck similarly similarly similarly can't say that we'll cut that out uh then that might be the best way but this was super fun so let me spin you around it okay so basics of the flatbed i've always wanted to be able to have a full-size bed on this toy-sized truck so i went from the stock i think it's five feet three inch bed um correct me if i'm wrong it's like five feet just over five feet to six feet and four inches which is the same length of a regular sized bed on the regular cabs in the extended cab tacoma so six foot four inches long it's also six feet wide side to side now this is a decision basically keep in mind too all of this stuff is like a working model like nothing is done the paint the aluminum everything will probably change in one way or another so if you see something that looks funky it's because it is really funky and it's like literally just a working model at this point but the width of the flatbed is something i really debated a lot of i didn't want to go through all this trouble and make it narrower than i like later on be like dang it i wish i made it a little bit wider so i went with the slightly wider than um than the truck which is this is basically yeah six feet i think if i did it again i might do it uh six feet you know minus two inches or something just like i would move it in just a tiny bit so i might do that later you know trim it and do all that kind of stuff but anyway six feet wide six foot four topped with aluminum this is like uh 10 gauge i believe or eighth inch or three millimeters it's all right around that side this um is just attached right now with some rib nuts and yes there's going to be a barrier between the steel and the aluminum to keep from electrolysis or whatever that's called where it can corrode but i'm not really worried about at this point i wanted to do it this way right now so that i could remove it because i knew i was going to be working on it a lot um fenders are steel hand made obviously everything here is handmade in my garage but these i just did a scoring and bent over i think i might have some footage of that gas filler there i wanted to do removable storage boxes i didn't know if i could do aluminum tig boxes that would come out as good as i would like and i wanted to use pelican cases because they're watertight and they're bomb proof so i don't have to fabricate the box which could be super difficult and of its own but i did make kind of a neat storage solution using these 1510 cases and you just reach in here undo the latch and this guy pops open on gas struts and that was super fun to come up with and fabricate i was going to use drawer slides because it's just so simple but i only have about a foot of distance in there and most drawer slides only double in distance or a tiny bit more this actually has to come out like one and a half and that's so when you open this case in this case it's just duct tape in here at the moment it the lid can open all the way and it won't be inhibited by this guy if it was you know right here then your lid would only barely open so that was really fun to design i'm really stoked on the way that came out and you can put it away just as fast i don't know if i can do it with one hand on camera here but there we go so that's kind of neat that uses a rotary latch um and then for the back i wanted to do a pull out slide let me pull out the slide for you okay so i want to show the center drawer slide but i also just want to take a second to kind of talk about the design theory that i used uh when i made this or kind of my philosophy of why i did it the way i did it now of course when you're making it yourself you could do whatever you want so you could make this this high you could make it as low as the frame you could do wheel wells you could do there's so many options and really a lot of them are great options and it was really hard to decide which one to do i really debated like you know do i do a center slide or do i make the floor dip down that low so that i can stand that much higher when i have a flat bed on all those things i considered all those things i might do at a later point too like change it out but you just could get stuck on so many decisions it's like baskin robbins there's too many flavors they're all they're all good so the reason why i did it the way i did it this time was i wanted to have a low center of gravity i wanted to have full articulation of the wheels i didn't so i put this just as high as the old wheel well so that means a tire can tuck up there just as high without hitting um and when i went up higher that means i can have a fully flat surface the whole time and it means that i can take advantage of that 10-inch section basically between the frame and the bottom of this for storage now of course i could use that storage when it's if i made it low but that means that that storage would have to be inside the camper or on top of the flatbed when i don't have the camper on there and it just makes it you know you got cases sitting on your flatbed that are getting in the way this way i've got those two rifle cases i've got these two 1500 cases i have eight gallons of gas and i have a big void up front where i'm going to do like a dual battery and i can do air compressor and i can do water tank so all of that to say that's why i made it uh this height and let me show you the door slide now okay so drawer slide uh in the back here basically the width of the frame rails and i don't know if i can do this with uh one hand okay so i've got the lock it's gonna lock on both sides you gotta do both but i think i've had it unlocked then you just pull out here and the cases are not latched in yet i still have to fabricate all that but you can see i've got two large rifle cases here um these are 37 inches long and i think they're six inches deep five inches deep the 1700 case you can look up the dimensions but the idea is to be able to do some storage here it's waterproof it's bomb proof you can again i'm going to make them removable and lockable so it's just like really easy to interchange whatever you want to have in here i've also got the eight gallons of gas via my craigslist find rotopax the lock is not on here at the moment but there's a way that this stays and you can't pull these out it also is accessible once this is totally closed up um and yep you got to use both hands for that push both these down i might make that like a full uh like a full bar so you could do it with one hand but check this out okay so then it'll close up like that um yeah that's the center drawer slide and that's how i'm able to keep all that storage down low and nice and tidy the nice advantage of that is i have all this gear with me whether i have the or the possibility to have that gear with me whether i have the camper on or not so no camper shell you know maybe i have tie-downs and i have recovery gear and like roadside assistance stuff maybe one of them is just empty for easy storage and then under this panel uh there's gonna be a huge box underneath where i can do like that air compressor and all that kind of stuff but yeah that's the rear drawer slide let me pull it out and uh close it one more time just so you can see it these drawer slides should be able to hold um almost 400 pounds so should be plenty of weight like i said i still have to fabricate how these are gonna latch in there i think i'm gonna use some rotary latches um but yeah super useful i think i'm also gonna do like uh some of the standard like car fluids uh stored in here too um these all slide in here and then that's gonna close nice and shut uh shut it's tight and then uh i can still grab my gaskets and load them up like that too so yeah center drawer slide all right okay so this is kind of just like an introductory to the flatbed i've got so many details this share i know you guys have questions i'm going to show some stuff of how i made it we'll go over the metal gauges how much everything weighs why i chose which metals i did all that kind of stuff i think it'll be in a future video but i want to talk a little bit about my ideas for the camper that's going to go on top and then i just want to show you all the storage open real quick so i'm going to open this up real fast especially i think i'm going to have a little pole latch there we just saw this but i'll open this again [Applause] then on this side same thing and then you know of course you can open from here so yeah i'm really excited about that obviously you can tell in this video i just want to talk a little bit about my ideas for the camper on top because i think everyone's wondering what the heck i'm doing with that i'm really inspired by this company maltec or maltec trucks they do a bunch of conversions they do the carbon fiber conversion i'll do a picture up in the corner maybe a few pictures of some of their trucks super neat i think there's a youtube channel dirt sunrise they just got a maltec 80 conversion so check them out i'll try and put their name here or down in the description another company obviously that inspired a lot of the design elements of this is hunted engineering they're in australia and they make really neat looking trays for a bunch of different cars pictures that inspired me um they have removable canopies and they use those for like storage and stuff like that but um i'm going to try and hopefully combine two of those things oh another one is a polydrop teardrop trailer so they make a really cool super lightweight teardrop trailer and the interior of that is super cool so that's kind of what i'm inspired to do is not make an rv like i'm not trying to make like a kitchen and a sink in a bathroom and shower and all that kind of stuff inside the camper that i make this truck is just too small for that it would make a lot more sense just get a full-size truck with a camper shelf if i wanted to do that or a slide-in so for me at least this first time i'm going to try basically to make some really comfortable sleeping area for two adults to two adults and our two kids so my idea is to make it as lightweight as possible because i made the frame of this really strong and rigid i can make like a lightweight camper that's gonna attach to this and not have to worry about it supporting weight i'm also not going to have a tire hanging off the back i'm going to show you a kind of cool solution for where my spare tire is going to be and so basically i'm thinking i'm going to try and make as light as weight as possible a really comfortable really really nice place to crawl into in the middle of the night and sleep and hang out if the weather is terrible i don't know i really want to do a pop-up with hard sided walls you know that fold kind of like hiatus campers super cool i don't know if i'm going to do that the very first time because i'm going to be using new materials to make the camper that i'm unfamiliar with and i'm i'm i'm expecting it to be a little more difficult than the stuff i've been doing and i don't know if i want to do full send try this you know learn a bunch of stuff at once so i might make a hard shell first that doesn't move and then make another one ah it sounds crazy saying and make another one but yeah make another one that pops up so not totally sure but i'll show some pictures you can kind of get the design ideas that i'm going after i'm really excited to see how that actually looks and how it's going to work on my truck i think i think it's just going to be like the ultimate rendition of my track for the way that i use my truck so you guys thanks for tuning in to a new video on my youtube channel i can't believe i say this every time but i can't believe how big it is now we're over 16 000 subscribers i haven't uploaded in a while but i still get so many awesome comments from you guys people making the awning people making the bumper um shout out to you guys i really appreciate every one of you who've downloaded that who've subscribed to the channel i'm honestly making enough money on just these videos and my digital downloads to pay for the material so now i've set that up all the money that i make on youtube it's not a ton but all of it goes to a separate account i have a separate card and i use that now to pay for everything on here like the nuts and bolts and steel and saw blades and all that kind of stuff the paint yeah i just want to say thank you so much if you want to keep supporting me if you're new if you want to support me check out my website i have some digital downloads for some of the stuff i've built the plan is to make a digital download guide on how to build parts of this flatbed yourself because i had a lot of questions when i was building it like i just wanted a picture of like even just the frame and the measurements and stuff turns out it's easier than you think but check out my website for details on how i built this like dimensions and heights and all that kind of stuff that's going to be out at some time um if you would like this video leave a comment um i would love it if you'd subscribe it really helps the channel and it just makes it more fun to make these videos and it kind of opens up some cool possibilities for me so thank you guys and i'm super excited to keep you updated on how this goes and we'll do a whole build series on the camper as well so all right i hope you guys have a good day we'll talk to you later

Channel: Overland Under Budget

Views: 118,326

Keywords: tacoma, 1st gen tacoma, overlandunderbudget, overland under budget, diy flat bed, tacoma ute tray, ute tray build, how to build flatbed

Id: O2M7Z1ryaQg

Length: 17min 58sec (1078 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021