aemravan's build thread - project TacoRunner

[aemravan]

Had an hour of spare time to kill before our friends came over for dinner so I started welding together the pieces for the swing out.

I must say... practice makes perfect. I got to a point today where I was actually pretty amazed at the weld bead I was getting. Obviously far from perfect, but a long way from where I started. Hoping to get the rest of the swingout finished tomorrow morning.

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[montijo505]

Had an hour of spare time to kill before our friends came over for dinner so I started welding together the pieces for the swing out.

I must say... practice makes perfect. I got to a point today where I was actually pretty amazed at the weld bead I was getting. Obviously far from perfect, but a long way from where I started. Hoping to get the rest of the swingout finished tomorrow morning.

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That ain’t nothing to scoff at, nice and tight!


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[aemravan]

Hit a huge milestone today... the swingouts are together ! Took a long day of work, mainly working by myself, but I got it done.

Got a few things to do on it still, like grind some ladder welds smooth, make up the hi lift mount, and adjust the rubber bump stops on the bottom to allow the arms to sit lower. And the ofrpcuse paint... but overall, I feel like I am very. Very close !

What do you guys think ? The slant ladder was an afterthought, the original one i made was squared off and I hated the look. This one, I don't hate so much

Still a bit paranoid about welding my own stuff together.. but I thibk it's pretty good and gusseted where needed, but time will tell I guess..

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[aemravan]

And in attempts to drive my wife completely insane with my car projects I decided to see what the hi lift mounted would look like. I like it. And am very seeomipusly considering going back to a spoiler damnit...

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[montijo505]

Looks good!


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[royal T4R]

New to the thread and the older pages won’t load. How the heck did you do the taco front?


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[xtremewlr]

New to the thread and the older pages won’t load. How the heck did you do the taco front?


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Pics working fine for me. Sounds like an issue on your end.

 

[AuSeeker]

New to the thread and the older pages won’t load. How the heck did you do the taco front?


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Pics working fine for me. Sounds like an issue on your end.

All pages and photos are loading fine for me as well.

 

[aemravan]

After finishing the swingout and taking a look at it yesterday with the tire on I decided im going to rework the position of the tire a little.

I have probably close to 2 inches of clearance away from the hatch that I can use. This will reduce the distance of the cantilevered weight quite a bit and reduce the forces the bouncing 85lb wheel/tire has on the structure.

Lesson: don't get caught up in the excitement of finishing a project because you'll end up spending more time fixing it after the fact those are some serious welds to cut through and grind down lol.


Overall I am extremely happy with the setup. The hilift brackets are on and the jack fits right in place and is no longer on the roof, which is a double benefit both for ease of access, as well as getting as much weight down low as possible.

The ladder also is sturdy enough for all mine 215lbs to get up on surprisingly lol, not that I plan on using it much, but it's there if needed.

Going to try and mark/cut the carrier today. And if time allows maybe swing by my parents house to weld it back together. Would love to paint this during the week before it rains this weekend..

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[aemravan]

The swingout is finally complete. I am beat.. a lot of hard work in a short time.

After I finished it I decided to cut the mount off an chop it back some more and tilt it a bit more. Less cantilever mass and better angle. Tire now matches the ladder angle and I love it .

Now it's time to hit the trails.

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[aemravan]

My long awaited roof rack is here.

Right off the bat I realized I screwed up the mount bracket hole spacing, but nothing a quick drilling can't fix. The hardware I have isn't long enough so I can't test it unfortunately...so instead I decided to clean and paint the fairing and side rails. The light bar is mounted as well and is all good to go.

Don't know if I can find the right length M8 hardware locally tomorrow, if not it'll have to wait until Friday from McMaster.. can't wait to have this mounted and hope like hell it doesn't fall apart with the rtt on :rofl:

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[aemravan]

Painted and test fitted as of this morning.
Not terrible but definitely needs a little attention with regards to shaving down the spacers to get the height right and getting the positioning a bit better.

Somehow screwed both of the hole spacing patterns on the bracket to the car and to the rails :rofl: but some drill bit love solved that issue.

Overall not terrible for a self designed rack that ran me 400 bucks to make. Sold my prinsu for 800 lol.

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[aemravan]

Tinkered around it it a little at lunch and it's looking promising.

Not 100% satisfied with it, but at the end of the day it'll get the job done and is about 90% of what expected.


Need to cut down the rest of the spacers after work today to get it seated a little lower and put on the rest of the bars, but overall I'm happy.

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[aemravan]

One step closer

Took some time after work to fully fit the roof rack and I'm very happy with it. Looks much better than the first fit. Already see things I could have improved but I think for the time being it is more than enough for what I need and visually isn't half bad-looking. Somehow much light bar cutout ended up slightly wider than the original prinsu, and not as deep, so my light bar is recessed a bit and shines at the back of the fairing as it sits, and you can see the brackets on the sides. This isn't an issue though, because I just sold it , lol. I have a CaliRaised 43" combo white/amber bar on the way which is larger all around and should really compliment the entire setup. I can't wait!

I installed 1" spacers on all 4 corners. Was not feeling the sunken-in look up front with the bulge fenders, plus wanted a bit extra protection for them as well. 1" put the tires out just where they need to be and I love the way it sits. This also allowed me to fully clear the JBA UCA at full lock where as before it would rub pretty bad. I also gained extra clearance at full lock to the frame rail and it no longer rubs. This is a huge plus for my daily driving and backing into parking spots. It will still rub when flexing, but I'm OK with that since 95% of the time it stays on road lol.

The 1" extra track width in the rear is REALLY begging for me to do the wider flares sooner than later lol. I can already envision it but just need to find time to work on it without getting kicked out of the house by the wife since just about every free minute I have had in the past few months has gone to this build

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[BagiMT]

Painted and test fitted as of this morning.
Not terrible but definitely needs a little attention with regards to shaving down the spacers to get the height right and getting the positioning a bit better.

Somehow screwed both of the hole spacing patterns on the bracket to the car and to the rails :rofl: but some drill bit love solved that issue.

Overall not terrible for a self designed rack that ran me 400 bucks to make. Sold my prinsu for 800 lol.

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Looking great, planing on doing something similar. Where did you get it laser cut for that price? How did you make the mounting feet. Any more details on those?

 

[aemravan]

Looking great, planing on doing something similar. Where did you get it laser cut for that price? How did you make the mounting feet. Any more details on those?

I have a contact with a local metal vendor through work that does our laser cutting. The side pieces were like 70 bucks each the fairing was 115. I spent note on the cross rails.

The mounting brackets are pretty much identical to the sherpa roof rack. They are Z brackets that mount to the bottom of 2 rails. Don't have any closeups at the moment tlbut I'll snap some later.

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[aemravan]

Stretched her legs a bit at uwharrie this morning to test the clearance and lockers. The TacoRunner did great. Love the setup with the lockers. Literally made it possible to walk right up just about anything I could clear.

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[aemravan]

Been a while since an update.

Haven't done too much, but after going to uwharrie last weekend I was able to test fit the tent for out big camping trip on the 23rd and see how the rack holds up. Fabricated some brackets to mount the CVT awning.

The rack has left a little more to be desired.. I'll probably rework it in the next off season. The mounting holes I came up with aren't 100% as I thought it would work out but everything is on and it's holding up so far.

I'll probably need to go from 1/4" hardware holding the side rails to the cross bars to 5/16 just to be on the safe side but for now it should do. Just waiting on the side molle panels to show up so I can complete the outside.


Oh yea.. also bought thr plans to build some pull out drawers in the rear and ordered all the material..so that should be a fun project next

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[aemravan]

Not many large update as of recent, just been getting everything together for a 2 night camping/offroading trip to uwharrie this coming weekend.

I did do a small finishing things in the last week though:
-reloctaed/mounted the winch control box to the radiator support
-FINALLY installed a window washer tank I bought on Amazon.


The control box couldn't sit on top of the winch without cutting thr grill out around it, so my brother suggested I take it off amd hard mount it else where, great idea.

The window washer tank was so long overdue and missed... 30 bucks and less than an hour later (1 rivet nut to mount the tank bracket and splicing 2 wires to the factory plug) I have working window washer sprayers ( front only. Didn't care for the rear since I can't see put of it with the tire and jack anyhow).

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[momo.75]

Which washer tank is that?