Topher Builds
I wanna be Dave
I’ve been wanting to convert my main trx4 into a pickup for a while now and with the help of a wine night and some partially aware late night shopping I had the body and some other goodies delivered yesterday.
Here are some pics of the mock up and the current state. I was able to originally have the cab sitting fairly low on the chassis but the bed is another story. After crudely cutting holes for the shock towers I was able to get it seated to the point where I was okay driving it but still want to get it lower. As pictured I had to lift the cab up a little higher to keep it in line with the bed.
If anyone has any tips or ideas here please share.
Aside from the hilux body, I’ve made a few other changes:
- replaced shock towers and removed the rear fender wells
- removed the battery center battery tray
- installed spools in front and rear and removed locker servos
- Underdrive gears in rear
- Overdrive gears in front
- steel alloy axle housings from xtra speed
- 4.3” tall proline super swampers
- hot racing brass diff cover up front
I installed the under drive gears a few weeks ago and could tell there was a healthy difference. When I locked up the diffs I wanted to maintain some type of decent turning radius so I did the overdrive up front. The truck is “faster” and doesn’t seem to drag the back end around too bad. Turning radius is acceptable.
The steel alloy axle housings from xtra speed added good weight but there are flaws in the finish and some of the tolerances were very tight and took some finangling to get the bearings situated and the rod ends in place. They were cheap, less than $40 for the pair shipped from China if I remember right, but I can’t reccomend them due to the fit and finish issues and the prospect of returning a defective item to China isn’t anything I’d want to go through. See attached pictures (better quality than Imgur) for examples of the finishing flaws and a couple pictures from the completed rear axle build before I added the spool.
I installed a significantly shorter tire, was running rock beast XLs previously, as I was looking to lower the overall CG. There is a huge difference in size between the original proline super swampers and the rbxl and it’s obvious when driving. The truck is less prone to rolling in my little field test, and seemed to get over rocks just fine, but will see if I get hung up anywhere on the trail. Thinking that with the portals I should be fine with a shorter tire.
Here’s a picture of the tire comparison as well as a side by side with my mostly stock bronco chassis to visualize how much was removed. The wheelbase hasn’t changed but the angle and tire size difference makes it look like it was.
That’s about it for now. If anyone has any tips for getting that bed lower please share. I’m also considering going truggy with it so if you have suggestions or recommendations for whomever does custom truggy cages please share as well.
Here are some pics of the mock up and the current state. I was able to originally have the cab sitting fairly low on the chassis but the bed is another story. After crudely cutting holes for the shock towers I was able to get it seated to the point where I was okay driving it but still want to get it lower. As pictured I had to lift the cab up a little higher to keep it in line with the bed.
If anyone has any tips or ideas here please share.
Aside from the hilux body, I’ve made a few other changes:
- replaced shock towers and removed the rear fender wells
- removed the battery center battery tray
- installed spools in front and rear and removed locker servos
- Underdrive gears in rear
- Overdrive gears in front
- steel alloy axle housings from xtra speed
- 4.3” tall proline super swampers
- hot racing brass diff cover up front
I installed the under drive gears a few weeks ago and could tell there was a healthy difference. When I locked up the diffs I wanted to maintain some type of decent turning radius so I did the overdrive up front. The truck is “faster” and doesn’t seem to drag the back end around too bad. Turning radius is acceptable.
The steel alloy axle housings from xtra speed added good weight but there are flaws in the finish and some of the tolerances were very tight and took some finangling to get the bearings situated and the rod ends in place. They were cheap, less than $40 for the pair shipped from China if I remember right, but I can’t reccomend them due to the fit and finish issues and the prospect of returning a defective item to China isn’t anything I’d want to go through. See attached pictures (better quality than Imgur) for examples of the finishing flaws and a couple pictures from the completed rear axle build before I added the spool.
I installed a significantly shorter tire, was running rock beast XLs previously, as I was looking to lower the overall CG. There is a huge difference in size between the original proline super swampers and the rbxl and it’s obvious when driving. The truck is less prone to rolling in my little field test, and seemed to get over rocks just fine, but will see if I get hung up anywhere on the trail. Thinking that with the portals I should be fine with a shorter tire.
Here’s a picture of the tire comparison as well as a side by side with my mostly stock bronco chassis to visualize how much was removed. The wheelbase hasn’t changed but the angle and tire size difference makes it look like it was.
That’s about it for now. If anyone has any tips for getting that bed lower please share. I’m also considering going truggy with it so if you have suggestions or recommendations for whomever does custom truggy cages please share as well.
