[Rock music playing]
Today is a good day!
I'm adding a modification to my 2018 Toyota Tacoma that I've been wanting to add for a
super long time- a tent over the truck bed right here.
It's like a 2-level, second story tent that just unfolds in minutes and then a ladder
pops down and you can just go camping anywhere.
It's awesome.
I will link everything that I purchased down in the video description.
Most of it I got off of Amazon and eBay.
There are these metal racks right here that go over the truck bed so that you can still
use the space underneath the tent for storage.
And then the actual tent itself, which is right here, I think it was around $900.
The price is in the video description with that link.
But, yeah, let's install this thing and take it for a spin.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
Alright, so one thing that I want to point out, this is a 3rd Gen 2018, but right here
we have another Tacoma, this is a 2nd Gen. And the racks and the tent fit both of them.
So right now my buddy Braxen is unboxing the racks here, which these ones are the cheapest
ones I was able to find on Amazon.
There are some pretty expensive racks that sit in the back, but realistically I'm probably
not going to be camping that often.
I just want the option, so I didn't want to spend, you know, thousands of dollars for
that metal rack of a tent.
One cool thing about these racks though, is that there's this metal little clip thing
right here where I can put one of those jacks, or like a shovel in between the two bars when
they are mounted on the truck.
And the hardware here kind of look like this.
So this little niblet right here will sit inside of these bed rails, which both the
3rd Gen and then 2nd Gen have.
And then the bolts right here will just connect to the rack itself and hold it in place.
Alright, we'll set those into place for now and unbox the tent.
[Braxen] I think there's...is there a pad in here too?
[Zack] Awesome!
That opened right up!
So one thing I'm worried about right now is that it doesn't have a ladder or a cover...or
at least I can't see anything.
Cuz like in the pictures on Amazon it has the ladder place and the cover when it's mounted
on a vehicle.
So we're going to open this thing up and see if it's inside, but I have my doubts.
[Braxen] Oh yeah, it's in there.
[Zack] What do we got, Brax?
[Braxen] It looks like a cover for when it's on the top of the truck.
[Zack] Perfect.
[Braxen] And here's the ladder.
[Zack] Perfect.
Alright.
Turn's out we do have everything.
Good.
In the tent for the first time.
It has a pad inside which is pretty nice.
I'm about 6 feet tall.
Let me see here.
With my legs completely at one end of the mattress, I have room to reach my arm completely
up to the top.
It's pretty spacious.
We could put like backpacks and stuff up here and still have room for plenty of space down
at the bottom.
The tent does say it was designed to sleep 2 or 3 people.
I would say 2 very comfortably.
Three...normally, I would just put 2 in here...or like 2 people and a kid or something like
that.
Okay, so right here we have the rail sitting on top and then this is what's going to mount
the tent to the rails.
We'll get to that in a second.
And then right here we have the ladder.
I'm currently mounting the hardware into the frame that connects to the ladder, which will
drop down from that second-story position above my truck.
And so I'm using these bolts right here with one large washer sticking through the bottom
with the washer on the bottom side, the tent side.
Once those are in I'll be able to bolt the ladder on and then we can lift the whole thing
up into place after we mount it to these rails.
[Braxen] So I'm going to interject here for a second on Zack's video.
When you're mounting the rails to the bottom of the tent, the bolts that you want to use
are the smaller bolts.
So there are two sizes of bolts: you have the smaller one, and then these larger ones.
These larger ones are going to mount the tent to the bed bars.
The smaller ones you're going to put through right here, and then that's going to mount
into those holes.
[Zack] To get access to these bolts, you do have to open up the tent a little bit and
go underneath the mattress.
There's a door on either side of the tent, obviously.
And then you can find these little holes and then stick the little bolts through.
Now we'll put on that silver rail.
[Braxen] So when you're sliding the nuts into the rail to mount onto the bottom of the tent,
you're going to slide the nut in this rail right here.
It's going to slide up to the mounting point.
And then you have the washer and the bolt on the backside.
[Zack] Alright, so that's one of the rails.
We'll do the same thing for the other rail down at the bottom, and then we'll plop the
whole thing on top of the bed mounts...the bed rack.
Alright, hardware for these rails are actually pretty simple, it's the same on all 4 sides.
I'm just going to take this little black metal bit and slide it into the rail to the point
that I want it.
Move it straight forward and then I can drop this down over top and bolt it in from this
side.
And it's done.
So they're loosely tacked into place right now, so we can still make some minor adjustments
once we get the tent installed over there.
Because we're not exactly sure how far we want it situated in relation to the tailgate
and the cabin of the truck, but we'll figure that out.
Alright, so I think that thing weighs about 120 pounds and that's without the ladder installed.
So 2 people is probably a good idea to put that into place.
Alright, so we have it up.
And as far as the bars go, I wanted the tent to be pretty well centered on the racks right
here, but I also wanted the racks to be the same distance right here and on the other
side.
So I think I have 8 inches here and then 13 inches here.
So we'll tighten everything in and then secure the bottom of the tent with the circular bar.
Got Braxen inside the truck.
And then right here we are mounting the tent to the bed rails.
Now the thing...the bed rails that we have are a little bit thicker than what the mounting
hardware planned for.
So these are the original bolts right here, and what we ended up using is an M8 – 1.25
x 65mm, which is just a tiny bit longer because these bolts that came with the kit weren't
long enough to fit over this bar.
So these are the 65 mm that we went and bought at Home Depot.
I'll try to link some down in the video description so you can just buy everything at the same
time.
But yeah, maybe other bed rails will work with the kit hardware, but ours did not.
Alright, everything should be mounted up.
We have the tent attached to the bed rails, and the bed rails attached to the truck.
Brax, is it going to fall off?
[Braxen] No, it's solid.
[Zack] Let's get the cover on and get it a try.
[Rock music playing]
Alright, so we have it hooked up.
I just unfolded it like you saw from the drone shots.
The ladder is super sturdy on the ground.
It looks like it can extend a little bit more if I needed it to.
These metal bars right here that are holding up the flaps above the windows, they go in
these little holes underneath the frame right here.
And we have the windows from the outside and everything.
And everything is super sturdy when you're inside.
I mean obviously you want to park on some flat ground so you don't have to worry about
rolling into the next person while you're sleeping.
And then how does the inside look?
[Braxen] Oh it's ready to go.
I'll show you.
You got your sun roof there.
If the rain fly is off, then you can actually unzip this zipper.
You can look through straight to the sky and see the stars.
There are two windows on each side.
I guess this would be the back door...front door.
Pretty comfortable pad.
You could probably fit 3 in here, comfortably too.
Pretty sweet.
[Zack] So obviously it's pretty windy right now, but actually taking this camping when
it's night and not windy I think is going to be pretty fun.
It's just one more way to accessorize a vehicle, an off-roading vehicle that you already have.
If you have any questions, leave them down in the comments.
We will be around to answer all those.
And if you haven't checked out Braxen's channel, I'll leave a link for that as well.
Thanks a ton for watching, and I will see you around.
[Rock music playing]