Modern Farm Truck

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

El'niño is having the opposite affect on us. It's pretty wet here now and I've already burned up twice as much this season as I did all last season.

Juices are definitely flowing...

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

We deliberated on seats for quite a while. He wanted something comfy, of course, but there are so many choices out there. I also know from past experience that a lot of seats are too tall or too thick for small Toyota cabs. I finally picked up a pair of Scion xB seats from a local wrecking yard and spent a bit of time getting them to fit.

I took someone's advice that they would in fact fit, but wow! They did not. With minimal effort I was able to mock them up, but my head hit the ceiling of the cab. I am only 5' 10" so that was a big surprise. After quite a bit of time fitting them and modifying the brackets, they finally fit, and quite nicely at that. Did I mention that the seat upholstery had to come off to get to the seat track bolts? I guess that made it easier to modify them, but what a pain.

Here are some pics.

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

More seat pics.

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Have any of you ever installed aftermarket shackles? Then you probably know about the crap that's available. The factory shackle has stepped bolts that tighten down on themselves so you can't squeeze the bushing. You can't get those bolts anywhere so I make bushing sleeves and use shackles with 9/16" bolts and buy custom shackle plates from guys like Parts Mike or WFO Concepts. As soon as I get my plasma table set up, I'll be able to make them myself...

Shackle plates and bushing sleeves.



Sleeves in place.

 

[bkg]

Matt - somewhere on YouTube are instructions for mounting the top1/2 of the scion seat tails to the lower 1/2 od Tacoma rails.... Goal being to bolt in and, I think, lower the seat a bit. May be worth a quick search? It's been on my list of to dos for 3 years.... Still on the list.

 

[thethePete]

Awesome looking work. Truck is fantastic, and I love the detail you put into your builds.

Did you give any thought to throwing a dropped middle into the tierod? Similar to a beam front end on a big truck, or older f-super duty 2wd? Would allow for more clearance to the oil pan, or do you feel that you've gained enough with just going to the flat steering arms?

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Matt - somewhere on YouTube are instructions for mounting the top1/2 of the scion seat tails to the lower 1/2 od Tacoma rails.... Goal being to bolt in and, I think, lower the seat a bit. May be worth a quick search? It's been on my list of to dos for 3 years.... Still on the list.

Hey Brian, if you find a link to that, I'd love to see it. I did get the seats as low as possible, which is 2.25" lower than when I did the first mock up, but the work involved was crazy. But then a lot of that time was in learning. The first seat took a while and the second one took about a third of that.

Awesome looking work. Truck is fantastic, and I love the detail you put into your builds.

Did you give any thought to throwing a dropped middle into the tierod? Similar to a beam front end on a big truck, or older f-super duty 2wd? Would allow for more clearance to the oil pan, or do you feel that you've gained enough with just going to the flat steering arms?

Thanks. I only do what has to be done to be a quality truck. I try to build them to last.

Putting a bend in the tie rod is not something I can do here. What I mean is, factory tie rods are forged and heat treated steel, usually solid. I use thick wall tubing, but it could never be as strong as a forged and heat treated piece. The flat arms give me 3.5" clearance to the oil pan, which when flexed out is about 5" of up-travel at the wheels. More than enough for a short truck like this.

 

[thethePete]

I know what you're saying; I just spent 30h fitting and tig welding a stainless dual exhaust on a 65 mustang I'm working on, just because I wanted it to be right. I wanted something that would last forever and be easy to work on. There were options that would've taken less time but they would have been less acceptable.

I'm familiar with the heat treating process for front end parts, so that's a pretty fair justification on its own. They're largely very thick wall tubing, since that's stronger in bending than a solid bar, but you're right it's a fairly specialized process. I wonder if you could do it with cutting and welding the centre section to give you a dropped centre that way. You wouldn't lose any strength from a bend. Possibly find a stock piece off a mini truck with a beam axle front end? Just working the thought exercise a bit here, sounds like you do have plenty of clearance for what the truck is intended to do anyway.

Carry on, I look forward to seeing the progress on this and the FJ in the other thread.

 

[bkg]

Hey Brian, if you find a link to that, I'd love to see it. I did get the seats as low as possible, which is 2.25" lower than when I did the first mock up, but the work involved was crazy. But then a lot of that time was in learning. The first seat took a while and the second one took about a third of that.

here it is!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPC4dKmKGs
May or may not work with the 2nd gen rails...

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Watched the vid. Cool for putting xB seats in Tacoma, but they would still be too tall for 2nd gen trucks. These seat bases are now about an inch shorter than the Tacoma seat base.

I love how the guy in the video didn't cover the seat fabric when grinding or welding. I bet he has a lot of happy customers...

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I know what you're saying; I just spent 30h fitting and tig welding a stainless dual exhaust on a 65 mustang I'm working on, just because I wanted it to be right. I wanted something that would last forever and be easy to work on. There were options that would've taken less time but they would have been less acceptable.

I wonder if you could do it with cutting and welding the centre section to give you a dropped centre that way. You wouldn't lose any strength from a bend. Possibly find a stock piece off a mini truck with a beam axle front end?

I build stainless exhaust systems for all my builds so I know what you're talking about. Some people don't get why a custom mandrel bent stainless system costs $3500. Well at 20 to 40 hours plus the cost of materials, which aint cheap, it all adds up.

Scabbing in a dropped center section wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm going to have to keep that one in my memory banks for later. Thanks.

 

[bkg]

Watched the vid. Cool for putting xB seats in Tacoma, but they would still be too tall for 2nd gen trucks. These seat bases are now about an inch shorter than the Tacoma seat base.

I love how the guy in the video didn't cover the seat fabric when grinding or welding. I bet he has a lot of happy customers...

Skills... skills keep the seat free and clear

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Started on the bed.

The customer gave me some criteria:
Had to be flat
Needs to hold a 100 gallon tank
Headache rack
Steps in sides of bed


Since it needed to be flat (as in, without fender cutouts), I had to figure out the height. I worked backwards from the ride height and then subtracted the height when the axle is at full stuff. Obviously we didn't want to build a bed that limited the suspension travel! I actually figured all this out before I mounted the fuel tank and the bed is about 3/4" higher than the top of the fuel tank.

I'll let the pics do the talking.

 

[XJSuperman]

Very nice.

 

[WillBeck]

Love this. The flat bed is coming out awesome.