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Pathy with FlatBed


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I hunt a 10 square mile area in West Texas and everything I have ever used lacks a little something. I have been thinking recently about converting my pathy to include a truck bed for hauling everything around, while still having a heater in winter and A/C in summer plus all the other comforts of an SUV. So, I want to put a flatbed on my 93 Pathy, I envision cutting the cab away just behind the rear seats with a plasma cutter and either fabbing an enclosure from sheet metal or cutting the back of a 93 hardbody cab off a donor and welding it up. I'll then fabricate a flatbed that will extend a little further beyond the length of the original rear most point at the back bumper. Has anyone done anything like this, have advice, do's/dont's, PICTURES?

 

Thx,

 

TXPower

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just buy a crew cab or quad cab pickup and flatdeck it. My ideal truck would be a four door diesel hilux, but we don't exactly get those in NA. Get a four door frontier, or a crew cab anything. It'll be a ton cheaper, a lot faster, and unless you're a skilled fabricator, a lot safer (structurally).

 

That is unless your reasons for doing it are you want to be different or you're bored and want to fabricate something.

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Actually the HB cab swap is a bolt on swap. No fabrication reqired. If you can turn a wrench its just as safe as factory.

You only get into FAB when you get into making the flat bed portion.

 

 

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I guess I should have mentioned I need the extra seating the pathy offers, my kids hunt with me. I thought of buying a 4dr rig but one worth having is still considerably more expensive than I'm willing to pay. Just wondering if anyone had ever done it. I'd luv to do a hardbody swap but it ain't 4dr's. Any other advice/ideas?

 

Thanks gentlemen,

 

TXPower

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Actually the HB cab swap is a bolt on swap. No fabrication reqired. If you can turn a wrench its just as safe as factory.

You only get into FAB when you get into making the flat bed portion.

Yeah cab swap, not bob the @!*% out of a pathy. Whats the point in just doing a cab swap? Only reason I can think of is if you have a hardbody with a rusted frame and a cheap pathfinder with a solid one.

 

All I'm saying, is I wouldn't want to put my kids in a vehicle I bobbed because I have very minimal welding experience. Granted I don't have kids, but for the sake of argument I wouldn't put any loved one in a vehicle I bobbed or modified the structural build of. Granted that statement is entirely relative to your fabricating skill and experience. I've seen a lot of bobbed toyotas and other vehicles done very well by people who knew what they were doing.

 

I'd still say if you just want a truck to go hunting with the kids in and need box space, look around. If you just want a bush beater, you could look at an older full size domestic, they tend to go for cheaper. Not commenting on reliability at all there are various crew cab and quad cab full size domestics, dodge made the dakota in a four door as well but those are a bit newer.

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who said anything about bobing it? That is the full length frame there. Nothing structural has been done to it. he just added a mount for his tire and stuff but the frame is un-modified.

And Coils (pathfinder) have advantages over leafs as far as comfort, articulation and road handling. Leafs on the other hand have the advnatace to better load handling in more consistant handling characteristics in varying load situations.

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Bobbing is to shorten the truck, can include shortenning the frame.

 

What you need is a dual cab Navara (Oz Hardbody, take the tub off and put a tray on and your done.

 

Resized330x235_W124369886470.jpg

Edited by DavefromOZ
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Yeah I have no intention of bobbing the frame, matter of fact, my idea on the flatbed integration would gusset or strengthen it if anything. As far as the cab goes, yeah, bobbing it is correct. I'm no professional welder but pretty good. I have a sneaky suspicion that if I cut the rear of the cab off a donor hardbody it will line up well and provide enough structural integrity to be safe. I could even include a small rollcage while I'm at it. I think I can do all this for well under a thousand bucks, which is way less than I would spend on a descent Frontier or Tacoma or otherwise. This is an off-road only vehicle. Why the hell wasn't the Navara marketed here?

 

Thx,

 

TXPower

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Read the OP, he wants to cut it off behind the rear seats. Thats called bobbing.

 

He wants to cut the BODY behind the rear seats, which is as good as doing a HB cab swap. hence NO BOBING INVOLVED

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I understand the OP wants to just cut the body behind the rear seat and think the cab swap linked is some cool shtuff :aok: my question though, flatbed necessary? A rear roof chop not an option and leave the quarters?

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hmm I'd try to find pix of Frontier2k1's 4 door chop..i think it gave him about a 3' or 4' bed and chop it down a lil more and weld on a flatty

DSC00507-1.jpg

 

didn't AK something or other do the same thing but chopped the rear doors as well?

Edited by unccpathfinder
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didn't AK something or other do the same thing but chopped the rear doors as well?

 

AK just shrunk the rear doors down to about 18" IIRC and used that to make the whole thing shorter. But that was just one intermediate step he made in the long run of chopping the whole thing and tubing it... his pathy is what started my interest and inspired me for mods. He did some sick work!!

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If you buy a hardbody with the king cab, it has the jump seats in the extended cab for kids to sit on.

 

Also, if the truck is going to be off-road only, you can likely pick up a hardbody that won't pass a safety check for cheap. I can buy tons of them up here for less than $1k.

 

If you still want to go with modifying a pathy with a flat-bed on it, you will just have to be the guinea pig and be the first one to do it. Someone has to do it, might as well be you. I converted an M109A3 deuce truck into a camper before most people had really done it. I learned a lot, and it was a lot of fun. Now everyone asks me how I did it ;)

 

For instance, I really like what this guy has done to his hardbody with the flat-bed box he built for it. Looking at doing something the same with my truck in the future. Someone has to be the first to do it.

 

DSC00567.jpg

Edited by Northernpathy
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He wants to cut the BODY behind the rear seats, which is as good as doing a HB cab swap. hence NO BOBING INVOLVED

 

Oh I get it now, cut the ROOF off the back. Body generally includes more than the roof... so I was confused, added to by that fourth post being a topic where the entire body was chopped off at the B pillar.

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