Toyboat’s 1985 Toyota Extended Cab Pickup Build

Now that the 1985 Toyota extended cab has it’s bed bobbed, it’s time for the frame to be trimmed to match. This is a great time to integrate some recovery points.

Here’s a shot of the rear frame. It hangs out behind the newly bobbed bed, and needs to be shortened. First, the crossmember will be welded in place and then the frame will be shortened to make sure the frame isn’t shortened too much!

This is what it looks like with the cross-member in place. Here is where you can open the tailgate and test the forward-to-rear location of the new crossmember before the Toyota’s frame is trimmed.

Toyboats said the crossmember piece he bought was 41 inches long and had to be trimmed just a little bit to fit inbetween the stock Toyota frame rails.

Closeup of the recovery point welded to the new crossmember tube.

Toyboats used a nice big piece of square tube for the rear crossmember but he might still add some angle bracing further up to the frame to support the center mounted recovery point. The tow loop was made of thick steel and had a nice taper. He made about 10 passes with the welder and figures that is strong enough for his needs.

So far, the mods cost total is up to around $1140, which included new tires and rims, new lift springs, shocks, lift blocks, ubolt flip kit, hysteer kit, IFS steering box, snorkle parts, and metal for rear bumper and driveshaft.

The tires were purchased for $375 for a set of 5 with rims. After the rims were sold for $100, total tire cost is only $275.

Future plans include sliders and other things on a ‘never ending list’.

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