2019 Toyota Tacoma Build

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Nice build but not very practical for anyone over 5’ 10” even with a wedge topper if a tailgate tent is required to sleep comfortably. Even with the 6’ truck bed we ended up putting the tailgate down and extending the sleeping platform at night as it took sleeping diagonally across the entire truck bed for me to sleep comfortably. By using the topper rear door to support a large mosquito netting draped and tucked under the tail gate we were able to get enough room to sleep but it was a pain if a bathroom trip was required at night especially if raining. There simply was just too little space without carrying extra gear or modifying to much to a point you might as well just tent or pull a small trailer. We ended up getting a bigger truck! Lol!!!
 
Nice build but not very practical for anyone over 5’ 10” even with a wedge topper if a tailgate tent is required to sleep comfortably. Even with the 6’ truck bed we ended up putting the tailgate down and extending the sleeping platform at night as it took sleeping diagonally across the entire truck bed for me to sleep comfortably. By using the topper rear door to support a large mosquito netting draped and tucked under the tail gate we were able to get enough room to sleep but it was a pain if a bathroom trip was required at night especially if raining. There simply was just too little space without carrying extra gear or modifying to much to a point you might as well just tent or pull a small trailer. We ended up getting a bigger truck! Lol!!!
I agree tall folks will have "length issues". The idea I'm toying with is to integrate a tent that connects to the strip of fibeglass on the camper shell door and somehow overlaps the tailgate. It needs to be fairly rain and insect resistant. It also needs to set up in seconds without a lot of fiddling. I tried a magnetic strips to hold some ripstop but was not happy with the design.

My opinion is that the extra 19 inches of footwell would work for even a fairly tall person and it would make a nice place to leave your shoes.

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Basically I used a couple wooden struts from the tail gate to the open topper rear hatch. Since it was a wedge shape topper the rear hatch was longer than the tail gate so it would line up with the end of the open tail gate slightly closed and slanted downward while held in place by the struts. Simply throw insect netting over it all and in bad weather a cheap tarp with bungee cords, if it got too bad I would close it up and sleep diagonally.
 
Basically I used a couple wooden struts from the tail gate to the open topper rear hatch. Since it was a wedge shape topper the rear hatch was longer than the tail gate so it would line up with the end of the open tail gate slightly closed and slanted downward while held in place by the struts. Simply throw insect netting over it all and in bad weather a cheap tarp with bungee cords, if it got too bad I would close it up and sleep diagonally.
This is kind of my current thought process as well.

Until I can come up with a clever design that does not take any space and sets up quickly...
 
I never was able to come up with a clever design that was easy to deploy so I finally just bought a bigger truck! Lol!!! I did also try a sliding drawer and folding panel but being made of wood made it too heavy. Again simply got a bigger truck then a bigger topper which led to building a trailer.
 
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