My dream tow rig.

[Gumby]

True, but with a donor rig you could section the pieces out rather than build sheet metal parts from scratch. you'd have to section all four doors too and would need custom window glass (not hard) and custom felts and panels (might be really hard)

OK. Doors are hard, but I liked the way it looked.

Seems it would be a lot easier to keep the roof line and the rear window too.

 

[usmcruiser]

I agree i do like the the look of it more. I think the ammount of rear hang balances out the overall length. Plus moving the B pillar back would get rid of the blind spot right next to your head.

Door skins wouldn't be too hard as you could cut up fronts for the rears. The window mechanism could be dificult though.

Then head liner would be interesting also. I have thought about making a template of the roof out of wood and using it as a jig for a fiberglass liner. Or you could have a auto reapulstorer (i cant spell to save my life) make one.

 

[scottryana]

37"

....Sorry for the hijack....

Gumby, what do you mean? Did you already trim your fenders and relocate your axle? In the picture I posted, the 37" MTR's stuff perfectly in the fenders. I will probably bumpstop them 1/2" out just to be sure. I wanted to go with 40" tires thats why I am looking for people that have or are willing to move/open the wheel wells.

Ryan.

I've got 37s on my SOA/coiled pig and it needs considerable axle relocation and fender trimming to get them to fit.

 

[Gumby]

With 37s i had to cut all of the lip off and hit them pretty hard in the front and rear when stuffed.

I even hit them with 35s a bit.

When I did the coil conversion i moved the axle back and I'm cutting the rear of the fenders even further.

With 39s or 40s you'll have to loose the inner wells and fab new ones if you want to keep it anywhere near low.

 

[usmcruiser]

Well I was bored at work so I did another chop from scratch. I lengthened the doors by 6.6 inches each and added 13.2 inches to the rear behind the door, Giving us a good towing length of 132.7ish. I think I like this one the best, except for the FJ Cruiseresque C piller.

My main concern for these is the glass. The rear glass and a gasket would be a bitch to find or make. I figure the door channeling and what not wont be that bad to figure out from JCWhitney.

 

[Gumby]

It'd be a major bitch to do, but I gotta think both the front and rear passengers would benefit greatly from some added door length. The B pillar is right in the way for a driver of any height. You don't want to add a 3rd row or haul a sheet of plywood and 5 people, you could have a lot of rear leg room too. Another 13 inches of passenger compartment would go a long way.

You might just as well go ahead and put that bitch on a full size dodge frame and get a D60 and D70 under it.

I don't know about a 6BT under the hood with no lift. Chevy small block oil pans are close to pig difs.

 

[usmcruiser]

I was planning on doing a spring over with 33s or 35s. That would also give me room for the 6bt. I dont know right now this is all a day dream as my 40 is still in a million peices.

 

[fng55]

glass for a pig is easy, its all flat other than the windshield. as for custom gaskets, they can also be made. almost every cross-section is available from the distributor we get auto glass from in bulk rolls.
just food for thought, carl

 

[Gumby]

How about the windshield. I think it might have to go wider to put it on a Tundra or a Sequoia. Or a Ram for that matter.

 

[clemson55]

Mt second opinion on this matter..... All these stretched out pigs with wider doors and pillars and such look f-ing stupid. They remind me of some kind of deformed 70's suburban or something. I don't think I ever want to use my 55 as a tow rig I want a sweet rig to tow my 55 to places. Like a 50's gmc or chevy COE with a diesel swapped in and a custom flatbed on the back.

 

[Gumby]

Your opinion.

I need a dd and a tow rig.

I'd love a 40s era medium duty truck on a F-550 platform with a roll back, but that's not likely to happen.

I don't want to drive a Excretion or a 'Burban.

I don't like the jelly bean look of a Sequoia.

The only thing I don't like about my 80 is the exterior design. It's too generic.

I could chop the frame of the 80 like Andre, but if I'm going to keep the running gear I will have to have the rear drive shaft trimmed by 10 inches or more.

When my plans call for a rig that would be better served by a longer wheelbase, then I want to look at stretching the body.

Form follows function.

 

[scottryana]

I have always wanted to do the exact same thing but with a 45 pickup. I really don't have any photoshop skills, actually I just downloaded photoshop last night and started playing around. Here is what I have come up with.

Ryan.

 

[usmcruiser]

I dont know if he has made any more progress but Jack Rice (Medusa) is stretching a 45 to tow his other 45 Truggy. It's not quite that extreme but the man is a master fabricator.

http://medusa.ih8mud.com/Cruiser.html

 

[Gumby]

I think I'll cut the A pillar out of one pig near the pillar and cut the pillar out of another pig about 8 inches wider on either side and put 'em together. That'll add the room to the doors with only two seams.

Anybody got a junk pig body they want to sell me about two feet out of the middle?

 

[merbesfield]

some one need to do some research on the dimensions of the Tundra DC so we can figure out if you could put that under one of these rigs, or better yet, my 1965 TLC FJ45LV. that would be cool, old yota on the outside, new on the inside. i agree, way too many other SUV's out there, that is why i want the old stuff.

 

[Gumby]

The DC is LONG. It's something like 140 wheel base.

It's also 10-11 inches wider track. That's be tough to hide without widening it.

 

[scottryana]

Exactly right the shortest wheelbase on the new Tundra looks like it will be around 145" and the track is 11.5" wider then a 55. I think that it would be pretty difficult to section 39" into the 55 body without looking strange.... You could always do like Andre did with his 80 and just cut and splice the frame.

Ryan.

 

[usmcruiser]

If you were to widen a pig. How would you go about getting a windshield gasket, windshield, and rear weather stripping?

I too have thought about doing this. Esentally taking the drive train out of a Ram 3500 and modifying the pig body to fit. But the gaskets and windshield baffles me.

 

[scottryana]

USMCruiser,

The windshield gasket, rear window and rear weather stripping wouldn't be too difficult. The weather stripping and gasket could be cut from 2 gaskets and glued together. The rear window is flat glass and could be cut by a good glass shop. I am not sure how to handle the front glass... I think it has a curve to it. You would have to talk to a glass shop and see if they could find glass that has the right curvature and dimensions.

Ryan.

 

[merbesfield]

You would basically have to do what Rod Millen Motorsports did to make their custom rig, they used old 45's and widened and lengthened it. This the rig that actually got me first interested in doing an old TLC wagon, then I found out about the 45LV's. I also included a pic of a crew cab 45 that is out of Brazil. The only place they ever made these. This crew cab was sold by TLC for supposedly 85K.