Flatbed build

That's a nice way for her to lose her virginity

 

I've had a couple loads like that where there was no need for power steering... LOL

Looking good.

 

I don't have power steering. I swapped it over to manual years ago. I have thought about putting it back a few times.

I still had plenty of weight on the front end.

 

I grabbed some more greenhouse plastic today. It gave me a chance to load bulky material. It was a piece of cake.

I milled up some locust stakes tonight. I will be hauling firewood tomorrow.

 

Here is the first full load on the new bed. Just over a full cord. We milled the slats from some red pine I cut a few weeks ago. We will be running load all day tomorrow to get as much hauled home as we can before the snow gets here. I'm guessing another 6-8 loads are still sitting there.

 

I have to be careful loading it with wet wood. The bed will easily hold a cord and a half. I start running low on tire-to-bed clearance before that. Some of that is because of the weight of the bed, since it is a bit heavier than the old one, but the new bed is HUGE (7x8) compared to the factory model. I never ran out of weight with the old bed, just room. I have to relearn how to load my truck.

 

Nice load!

 

I thought that load was pretty heavy. The loads today were even heavier. I didn't realize it until I got home and unloaded, but I completely filled the bed! It was just over the sides all the way back, AND i stacked it a lot tighter than my son did in the picture above.

 

Time for some 1 ton springs.

 

Lol, I already have 3 ton springs in it.
I could go heavier, but I don't think I'll worry about that until I get my new frame sections put in.

There is a lot of hard maple and white oak in these loads, so they are heavy.

 

Now that looks good and your hard work is paying off

 

I have more bed than truck. Can easily overload.

 

I was going to ask about tire rub. I have seen a lot of flat beds made that do not take into account the wheel wells needed for articulation. Most of them probably never see enough weight for it to be a concern.

 

Yeah, I see a lot of them with only an inch or two over the wheels. I think I had 5" when we started the bed. I can measure and let you know what the clearance is when empty.

I had close to 2" of clearance left with the loads pictured, but that isn't much if you go off camber or hit a good bump. I have about 36" of height at the rear when empty, and I didn't want to go higher. I have 6k lbs of springs back there, so I still have options if I want heavier springs. We just refurbished these last summer and they were starting to show rust dents and pits. We cleaned them up real good and gave them a coat of paint. I think we can get a few more years out of them without any trouble.

I had an image in my mind of how I wanted to build it, and I scoured the internet looking for ideas to make any improvements. What I found was a pile of wood beds that looked ok, but they were not built for heavy loads. This one will handle WAY more than the truck ever could. It should weigh around 475 lbs without the sides or headache rack when the wood is dry. The sides add another 50 ish lbs. The headache rack might add 75 lbs. The oak beams are still drying. The doug fir seemed like it was pretty dry by the time we oiled it. Finished weight should be close to 600 lbs. I could have used smaller beams and thinner decking and cut the weight down to 400 lbs, but I didn't want to worry about breaking it.

 

Constructing an actual flat bed on most pickup chassis will see conflict between bed height and room for the tire. Pretty common in my parts for the beds to rust off trucks so I see quite a few home brewed flat beds around. I used to be into off roading trucks, so articulation is always in the back of my mind.

Maybe a JOB box or tool box at the front to discourage overloading? Good place for the saws and ancillaries too.

 

I'm not that worried about overloading as long as I don't get greedy with stacking above the sides. I can easily carry a full cord of wet wood and be ok. I have decided to shorten the sides a bit because the top board blocks my view to the side when looking for traffic to my rear side. That will prevent any accidental overloading.

Articulation is always on my mind, but I try to avoid it when loaded because of the stress it puts on the frame and cab. I don't really want a job box in the bed. They take up too much space. I have thought about putting a box under the bed.

 

Just want to update. I have hauled more with this bed than I thought I would. Rounds, logs, splits, scrap steel, hay (oh man, this bed is awesome for hay! I can carry 3 bales going across the bed or 4 bales going the long way stacked 2 high), lumber, etc…

It is still holding up well. It has darkened and is more grippy now with some dirt and grit worn into the surface, but it still looks good. I need to get the filler neck welded up so I can get gas without doing acrobatics with the filler nozzle.

I will be building wood beds for my trailers too, as well as my son’s truck.