Drilling into the frame?

[CaptBuffalo]

Yeah, she was sitting there eating chips.. but she does provide good moral support.

This project is going to take awhile, but I'll make sure to keep you all informed on how it goes down!

 

[The_Josh_Bear]

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The idea is to have the flatbed ride on square tube frame that is attached at 6 points, four of which have the floating design. The mounts at the rear will be hard attached. The height of the mounts will accommodate the hump in the frame. Will probably sit kinda high, but that's ok because the flatbed has a full size ladder rack built in and I don't want to have clearance issues with the cab.

I plan to use some pretty hefty springs- I've heard Cummins valve spring work well- so that the bed won't move much except for when the entire truck is twisting.

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Dear Lord tell me you don't have kiddos with that death trap teetering in the backyard!

For the rest of the advice, the guys on here have the answers for sure.

The wood between frame and bed is important and tried-and-true. All of our class B trucks go truck frame - wood - box frame. One of them is a dump style bed and rocks around like crazy if you pop a curb on accident. The wood takes a beating but keeps things from cracking and squeaking like crazy.

 

[CaptBuffalo]

I work for enterprise truck and all of our trucks use wood between the frame and box like you mentioned; however i have also read about how wood can promote corrosion and expands/shrinks with humidity. not too sure about how exactly i am going to do this project, but i gotta start with the basics first: gathering info (like this thread, thanks again ) and practicing my welding..

Also, the flatbed is no longer on those wobbly cinder blocks, it is now safe on the ground next to the bed that i took off already.

 

[ISPKI]

I am kind of surprised that this is actually an issue. I built my own steel flatbed out of a wood decked bed. Even with 6in cross members and 4 inch runners lined up with the frame and U bolted around the frame in the front and rear, the steel bed still twists quite a bit.

 

[jwalterus]

Dear Lord tell me you don't have kiddos with that death trap teetering in the backyard!

What's wrong with the redneck swingset?

I've never worried about drilling into the frame on any truck......
Either plate it with 1/4" where you drill welded solid, or weld on a piece of angle and drill into that.

 

[CaptBuffalo]

**UPDATE**
Got it mounted, and I abandoned the original spring mount design cause I'm not very good at fabrication (my first couple channel cuts were with a sawsall) and decided to go with the simplest and cheapest setup, as shown in the pictures below. Only drilled 4 holes in the frame, the other mounts made use of existing holes

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[CaptBuffalo]

Not completely done yet, I still gotta do the lights, fuel fillers and wood floor, but all the hard work is done

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[CaptBuffalo]

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[IDIBRONCO]

It's looking good so far. I'd recommend carrying a block (at least a 4x4) with you to drive on to fuel up. The filler necks look pretty flat in the pictures.

 

[CaptBuffalo]

Well, even parked on a 4x4 couldn't get a drop of fuel in lol. So I redid them.

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[IDIBRONCO]

That should work well. Too bad they didn't do that from the factory.

 

[Macrobb]

Just thought I'd chime in - just picked up a '87 F-350 with a 12x8 flatbed; it was a tire company rig. Bed looks like it's been there for at least 20 if not 30 years. It has a chunk of wood between the factory frame and the underframe of the bed.
Also, I was kind of surprised how light the bed was made; there wasn't nearly as much steel in it as I'd thought. Still, it was strong enough to support a 1,600lb-rated lift gate for the last 30 years, on top of whatever cargo it carried.

 

[CaptBuffalo]

I discovered that some how the flatbed is only a little bit heavier than the truck stock. Within 500lbs I think. I had 1500lbs of concrete in the back and my weight was like 8550lbs or so.

 

[ISPKI]

500lbs over stock bed weight is alot when you only have ~2000lbs of carrying capacity.

 

[CaptBuffalo]

What's the fun in having overload leaves (leafs?) if you never use them?