A couple of months back we covered the front suspension on our Tacoma project truck and mentioned that we would use a set of All-Pro leaf packs and shackles in the rear. This month we show you how we beefed up the tail of the truck frame and added rear shocks to complete the rear suspension. We also didn't like how the stock gas tank hung a bit low below the frame line so we made a few mods to raise it upwards for better clearance.
We had come to the point when it was time to connect the power and make this truck mobile again. For that, we needed a set of driveshafts to go from the Atlas transfer case to the D60 axles, front and rear.
We contacted Jim Reel of J.E. Reel Drive Line Specialists, and sent him a drawing with our drivetrain dimensions. A short time later after he'd noodled out some angles and trigonometry formulas, he called us up with his driveshaft recommendations. You'll see the 1350 joint shafts his team built for us along with some further details on their construction.
We've had trucks with rocker panels that grew too intimate in contact with the ground so decided to add on a set of functional rock sliders to protect the lower body sheet metal before the truck saw off-highway adventure. We found a product that's beefy and has a refined design to offer good looks and solid armor from the crew at Stubbs Welding. We broke out the welder again and soon had some tubular goodness attached to our frame rails.
Take a look below at some further details for the project additions this month. Next time we'll show you what we added as far as a front bumper and winch combination, along with a few other updates...stay tuned.
 Since we had plans to shorten...  Since we had plans to shorten up the tail of the truck, we chopped the frame off just past the rear spring shackle mounts. We had tack welded a temporary crossmember in place to keep the frame rails from moving and it was later replaced with a boxed section we added to the end of the frame rails. |  Early Toyota truck frames...  Early Toyota truck frames were fully boxed tip-to-tail, but the factory went with a higher grade steel and went with a partially boxed and braced frame on the Tacoma. For a rig that sees a fair bit of trail use with a beefier drivetrain, it's a good idea to add some strength to the rear portion of the frame rails. |  We made some cardboard patterns...  We made some cardboard patterns of the portions of the frame rails we needed to box and then cut some stiffening plates from 10-gauge cold rolled sheet. |
 The plates were welded in...  The plates were welded in place to fully box the frame all the way to the rear. |  The Tacoma gas tank sits about...  The Tacoma gas tank sits about three inches below the driver side frame rail and is vulnerable to rock damage (as seen here). We checked a few dimensions under the bed and decided to raise the tank so that its bottom was even with the frame. |  When we reinforced the frame...  When we reinforced the frame we cut out the gas tank crossmember, plated the frame, and then welded the crossmember back in place but raised it to facilitate our gas tank lift. We also had to modify the tank mounts, shorten the filler tubes, and modify one of the ribs under the bed to get our tank tucked up higher. |