I am looking in to what options I have for an ecinomical flat bed. I need to be able to cary 2-3 ton's. steak body would be a good bonus. I will also need to put a couple boxes below it. I was wondering if any one knew of whether a home built one would end up good enough and decent price compaired to buying a steal one.

 

What kind of truck is this going on? 2-3 tons is a good bit of weight, you could build it if you had plenty of welding experience and some wood. I would run a could of 2x6s and atleast 4 cross braces on a short bed pickup and 6 on a long bed. 2x4" box steel cross braces plus 2x6s will probably hold more weight than you'd want over the rear axle.

 

F350 7.3 idi single 4.10 rear. I have a working farm and from time to time will need to move 2-3 pallets of fertalizer/produce/pellets to and from stores. it is 6'x10' or so a 4x8 ply sits between the wheel wells and has about 2-4' before hitting the ends of the bed. I havent gotten ahold of a welder yet so im kinda stuck in that dept for now. ug sorry for not posting earlier.. thought I had hit submit on this several days agao. to much crap has been going on lately.

 

It may not be legal if you care about that,but state DOT will and you may want to check. The bed should only be 8.5' and around 6' wide. You could theoretically build it from wood, probably rail road cross ties and 2x6"s if you need something quick.

 

went and measured, it is 8.5x guess the ply shrunk after cutting I will have to see if i can get some railroad ties for a decent price. was thinking about using 2 layers of 1' subflooring for the bed, will have to look at prices around here though. I want to make it steak body capible. Another question would be the fuel ports. Im wondering if I can make them capible of handeling the semi pumps as I suspect I will need to relocate them when I get rid of the current bed.

 

I am pretty sure they discussed that in procedure in the excursion forum or maybe the superduty forum, I saw it somewhere and it was a simple task. I think NAPA carries the filler and it just clamps on to the hose.

By subflooring I think you mean press board, if so, that stuff doesn't like getting wet and working. It's a lot like plywood. It will cost you a bit more for 2x6's but they will last quite a bit longer.

 

real subfloor is 1" toungue/groove plywood that fits together so it wont buckel. will have to see about the 2x4/6's

 

Railroad ties are 8'6" wide and weigh 180-225# depending on the quality. Better get a bigger truck if you use these.

 

I'd suggest building your own out of metal, its way cheaper than buying one and more dependable than using wood. I know what goes on at a farm so I wouldn't suggest a wooden bed if you plan on actually using the truck pretty regularly. However, I myself am building a flat bed on a '94 F-250 for work, using 2x2 tube steel (near a 1/4" thick) and its plenty for what I have in mind although probably won't be able to exceed what the bed/truck will be capable of. Mine is pretty elaborate, but the cost of the materials was just under $300 even with the price of scrap way up (its currently $175 a ton here). I bought roughly 20 ft of 2x2, 40 ft of 1x1 (bracing), 16 ft of 1 inch angle, 24 ft of 4 inch angle, and two 8x8 feet sheets of 1/8th inch steel, thats a lot of metal and I've used most of it up so far.

You could probably get away with using about 68 ft of 2x2 tube to get your frame started and fill in the holes with either 1/8th inch plate (or 1/4 if you really plan to work the truck) or 10x6x2 inch boards and bolting then into place. Btw the maximum street legal width of a vehicle is 8ft...not 6ft. The only other thing I would suggest is running cross bracing to keep the 2x2 from flexing to much, you need to watch stiffing the (truck's) frame though or you will cause the bed frame to crack or warp, eight 2 inch risers should be plently to allow the frame to flex, just don't weld to the frame or it will have the reverse effect, your contact points should be kept as "bolt-on". (this would make a frame about 10 ft long and 8 feet wide)

This would make for a very sturdy flatbed, albeit it won't be the best looking thing out there but better than a wooden one (imo), you can add side pockets pretty easy too, depending on how many you wanted, all you would have to do is get roughly 32 inches of 4x4 steel and cut them in half and then cut them again to give you your pockets to be welded into place, everything above can be pretty easily done in about a week if your working by yourself.

Sorry for rambling, but I'm a fabricator and can't help myself with stuff like this. ;p
But what I'm getting at here is that the cost of the wood to build a similar bed would surpass the cost of steel in the long run, maybe within 1-3 years depending on how heavily you would use the truck, just having a wooden floor would be a better alternative since you could replace it if you damaged it to much.

~Read

 

I've never considered using steel, but 1/8" might do the trick with a bit of sub flooring. Good points about the not making the bed too sturdy and firm to the frame, you're absolutely right about messing up the frame.

 

And while you have the old bed off ... You might want to add a few leafs to your springs ... Dave and Starmilt can help you there ... Look around the diesel posts for some good building ideas ...

 

where would be the best area to look in I tried searching but wasnt finding much. or bettery keywords. also I poked my nose in to the 66 F100 restoration thred and was reminded of the cabs mounting hardware. rubber disks. I would think that a bed would get similar treatment. maybe im wrong. Im half tempted to suse material like that to allow the bed to flex

 

Rubber or plastic isolators with some degree of durometer will allow the flex needed. Even 4x4 studs cut to give the bed some distance from the frame would work, as long as you used something soft like pine.