Flatbed; TLM Tundra

For anyone out there who’s got a truck with a plastic bed liner... when I took mine out yesterday to pull the bed off off this is what I found:



This is my finger IN a hole.. yes, a hole has rusted through the bed completely...



And there was another spot near the front passenger mounting bolt...

A little minor surface rust is to be expected in my mind but this is some major stiff and it’s concerning because it’s right around the mounts... if I were keeping the bed on I’d be cleaning this up and getting it sprayed for sure!! As I’m not, I’ll still clean this up and give it a quick paint job so it doesn’t continue while it’s sitting in storage.

 

It’ll be an electric compressor for sure, my Miller bobcat has plenty of power to run that and a welder or plasma cutter at the same time. But I was hoping to do the engine driven setup to reduce weight on the back of the truck

 

That flat bed looks tough on the Tundra. I like it!!

 

Post#2... last pic

What is the purpose of the harness that is behind the rear seat?

 

Weird angle.. that’s under the passenger seat, so it’s the hook ups for the airbags and seatbelt chime

 

Got lots of progress done in the flat bed yesterday.. started a little work today but hope to wrap up this weekend, a few pics; more in the build post (post #3)

 

Looking good!

 

Cool build I’ll watch this!

 

I’ve also got a start on the wings up over the tires but I only barely got started so I didn’t take any pics... and he lights came in today so I hope to have the read end done tomorrow with lights and the tag hangin correctly with hidden lock behind and relocated 7/4 pin

 

This is bad ass. I love seeing people build stuff. this is cool, very cool

 

Not tooo many pics today, I’ll get some tomorrow morning. Got the passenger wing all framed up and the pieces for the drivers side are all cut and ready to be tacked (they actually all were but I forgot and leaned on it pretty hard.. whoops )

Also hit a little snag at the end of the night when I realized that I didn’t include enough height to be able to actually put fuel in the truck... you could get the gas cap off but there was NO WAY a nozzle was getting in there. Luckily, about 10 minutes of head scratching and I’ve come up with a pretty easy way to just slightly move the fill and add a door to the bed that will cover it discretely... in the end I think I actually like this setup a lot more than just having it sticking out in the stock location.... again, I’ll get pics tomorrow when that’s done.

The plan is to get everything welded tomorrow...including the skinning so hopefully this thing has paint on it by Saturday and we’re lookkng at a finished product!!

Pics:

One bad-A corner... that’s a 45° miter joint WITH a 45° birdsmouth... all tied together (looks a little ugly with the welds currently, I was fighting heavy wind all night so those will get ground and redone)


And some awesome magnets.. I questioned spending almost $50 on these but man are they worth it!! Neither of these have any tacks at all.. just the magnet holding a 3-5lb piece of tubing in place like a champ!

 

looks great ! need some 35" and a 3" lift on that beast

 

We’ll see how things go dine the road but you don’t think it’ll get that much. The deck height is a perfect working height right now so 2-3 total would be all I’d really want. I’m think airbags though for down the road with an adjustment built in. That way I can lift it to ride and drop it to work

 

Got a lot done today! Still not 100% doennwoth the welding and ready for paint like I hoped but much closer...

Started with finishing the framing on the wings (with my helper there in the background... won’t even hold a level! Useless!) :


Got a much prettier corner on this side...



And built a bracket to relocate the fuel fill , final location pics to come... showing them now wouldn’t make any sense without the skin on it...


And got the main floor piece of 1/8 drilled for the rear bolts and welded in!!


Got started layin out the rear plate that will hold the lisence plate and tail lights but noticed that at some point my oxygen regulator on my oxy/acetylene torch got broken today... that was furriating!

You get the idea here though.. plate in the middle, lights on the sides:



I did also get the tag light run and wired in, forgot to get a pic of that so I will tomorrow...

This may be the only major updates until Monday, girlfriend is in town and we have a wedding to go to tomorrow so I doubt I’ll be allowed much time to work in this

Anyway.. hope y’all are enjoying this as much as I am and are as excited to see the end results!!

 

Oh! Also did a quick measurement and it oooks like so far I’ve got about 1” of suspension loss... and the welder and tools aren’t even on it yet...shit! I’ll definitely be doing bags now and likely some kind of springs upgrade as well!

 

Haven’t been nothing with it no... probably should have been but honestly once the weld gets started it’s hot enough that you can actually watch (through the helmet obviously) the paint peel back before the bead even gets there... I’ll post some close ups of the welds to show that they’re solid and clean

 

I was gunna chirp in and say weld usually burns the paint off anyway. It’ll hold. Just a few extra harmful chemicals to inhale haha

 

Well, yes and no. The concern is that you are introducing contaminants into the weld. I see some undercutting and a little bit of pin holes. You would get a little bit of a cleaner weld if you ground all that stuff off prior to welding it. Only concern would be that since your welds are intended to be structural, you want to make sure they are as strong as you can make them.

Digging the flat bed design though!

 

And I agree that it could be a slight structural loss with the paint inclusion but honestly it doubt it’ll be enough to matter

 

Forgot to get some pics up Saturday morning.. I git in a couple hours work before the wedding and got the lights mounted and temporarily wired (waiting on some diodes and resistors from Amazon to fish that up).

Sense my oxy/acetylene was out of commission for the weekend to has to get creative on how to cut the holes for the lights. After making multiple careful passes in a circle with the grinder I cut across the radius like a pie and the broke the pieces out with pliers.. a little finish work with the flap disc and I had perfect holes!




And then I’ll hit the whole plate mounted on the back and ready to be boxed in!


And a final shot with the reverse lights on:



These are all in one type lights (running, brake, turning and reverse). So they look like a standard red brake light until you put it in reverse and then the 2 super bright white leds in the center flip on and turn it to daylight!

 

Great business idea and truck. It’s almost impossible to get anything small welded at the shop. The guys are always busy and have no time for something like this.

Mobile welding always help. You just need to make sure you exist on google.

 

I haven’t got a site yet but I’ll be working on that shortly

 

Curious.. what generator are you using to power your mobile welder?

 

Miller bobcat 250

 

It’ll get mounted on the drivers side wing above and he fuel fill. That way I can easily fill both at the same time and it’s the first thing I do when getting Yo a job (especially in the winter) is to start it up and let it warm up while I get other tools out

 

Ah. That thing must be niice. I just bought a Hobart 210 a while ago and am learning hot to weld on my limited free time. I'd love to eventually get a generator to power it though.

 

Honestly, if you have no need that r intention of being mobile you’re better off just plugging into the wall. The generator is great for allowing me to be anywhere but when I’m at home I’d rather just plug to the wall and not have to listen to it or burn the gas