Finishing Touches
With the exterior stretching complete, it’s now time to focus on the interior. The biggest consideration there is deciding what kind of seat goes into the newly created second row. The standard offering is just a duplicate of whatever is already in place for the rear seat, but Riley says that around 80 percent of their customers end up going with what he calls a 20-40-20 captain chair setup: bucket seats with a flip-up center console. This gives the center row passengers recline, tilt, more leg room, as well as power heated and cooled seats. The flip-up console can accommodate a third person when needed, or simply functions as console, with cup holders, built-in USB ports, and 12-volt power outlets.
As previously mentioned, Scott uses the truck quite a bit for his scout troop, so Custom Solutionz added a couple of things to the truck to help him get the most bang for his buck. First, the truck now sports an integrated roof rack system based off the popular Yakima design. Riley explains, “Instead of bolting onto the sheet metal of the roof, it bolts to the inner structure of the A, B, C, and D pillars. There’s a whole roof structure up there built into the gutters. We built some little aluminum steps that click and lock in place so you can get up there and walk around.” The system can support a ton of weight—“ I’m 6’2” and 210 pounds and I can walk around up there, no worries,” Riley says—and at ten feet long, has plenty of room for bikes, kayaks, and anything else Scott feels like putting up there. The second thing they added is a custom-built 45-gallon auxiliary fuel tank. “It’s an all-aluminum fuel tank with an 1/8-inch steel skid plate that fully surrounds it,” Riley explains. “There’s a system of floats so that when the factory tank gets below half, the auxiliary turns on and pumps it and fills it back in, then turns off when it’s full.”
All in all, the truck is quite the feat of engineering. Scott loves the way it turned out and looks forward to driving it every chance he gets. With something this unique, he’s bound to turn heads everywhere he goes.