Hey! I have a 91 F250. I have had to haul a couple things like lawn mowers, aerators, and a scooter in the back of my truck. There's nowhere to connect tie-downs!

I want to haul some motorcycles now. Do you guys have good solutions to getting some tie-down hooks/u-bolts installed? Where's the best place, and what's the best product for this?

Thanks for the help!

 

Any one of these will work, depending on where you want the tie down anchors to be mounted.



If you want something tied down to the bed itself then any of the "D" ring anchors will work. My personal opinion is to make sure that you anchor them to the bed cross members and not just the sheet metal that makes the bed.

If you want to tie something down to the bed rails then drill holes and mount something like the eye bolts. I suppose you could even do one of the half eye bolts (it's a hook instead of a ring) if you wanted to.

Below is a pic of what I did with my truck, but I do a lot of hauling (many friends who move once a year) so having the eye hooks is very useful for me to tie down furniture and other taller items. They also make a great place to secure my spare tire in an upright position to keep water from collecting around the bead and rusting the rim.



I used a bunch of goop around the washers to keep water from getting into the holes I drilled and rusting it out. I used 1 washer on each side of the bed rail. In hind sight, I should have put a nut on the top side of the bed rail as well, but it's worked out fine.

 

On my '85 F-250 I took a couple of 3/4" bolts, cut the heads off and stuck them through the 3/4" holes that truck had in the front stake pockets, then held them in place by sandwiching one side of the pocket sheet metal between two nuts. If I recall correctly I Had to thread one of the nuts all the way on the bolt, put the bolt down in the stake pocket and through one side, then could work the bolt around so it came through the other side ands I could put the other nut on. I could hook tie down hooks on the bolt (with the tie down coming up through the stake pocket). It wasn't the simplest to use but it was solid and clean.

Every truck I've had since that one has been set up to carry a slide-in camper. The front tie-downs I use are plates that bolt to the front of the bed, sticking out to the side. When you tie a camper down to plates like that it tends to flex the front of the bed a lot, so I bolted a 1" square steel tube across the inside of the bed, attached to the inner backing plates for the tie downs (they come with mounting holes just for that). I welded single chain links to the tube so I can use the tie down plates on the outside of the bed, the tube or the links on the inside. That's worked well for me.

 

Wow! Thanks guys!

DBGrif91 - thanks for the details and photos! I'll probably do a combination, 4-6 d-rings on the floor, and 4-6 u-bolts on the rails. Question: if you go with an iption like the bottom left of your picture, would you have to cut the sheet metal, or would it fit in one of the valleys?

Nothing Special - I couldn't follow what you did with the 3/4" bolts. Could you post a picture or something?

Thank you all!

 

i'd really like to see a picture of that too, Nothing Special ... sounds interesting.

 

You'll have to use some imagination. I don't have the bolts through the stake pockets on my '97. And it's a little different than my '85. The '85 had the holes in the front and back of the pockets while the '97 has them going across.

I don't have the right size bolts, but I stuck in a smaller eye bolt that was sitting on my work bench for this picture.
.

You can't use this small of a bolt because it's a lot smaller than the holes. The nut even fit through the hole. But it gives the idea. This picture shows a nut inside the stake pocket. I put another nut inside the bed, sandwiching the side of the pocket between the two nuts. By the way, I would NOT suggest using an eye bolt as I show in the picture. It would twist the sheet metal.


And as a bonus, here is a picture of my camper tie downs...


... and here is the backing plate inside the bed with the square tube with the chain links welded on.


These are the tie downs I have on my current truck.

Oh, and you can see the hole in the stake pocket in this last picture too, tucked up under the bed rail.

 

I added 1200lb D-rings to my dually.
I put them down low, that way everything can be pulled DOWN, not just straight.
I used 1" x 1/4" flat stock approx 5" long as my backer. I drilled and tapped it. The 1/4" hardware thread right into it. I have 2 more in the front of the bed on the floor(one of the bolts goes thru the double ayer for the crossmember



I have had to do a couple panic stops with a large compressor in the bed. It held it just fine and the metal around the tie down was Not fatigued

 

An even more important reason to attach down low like that is to pull against a strong part of the truck. Especially at the rear of the bed, if you attach up high you'll have a lot of leverage to bend the sides of the bed in. That's not quite as important in the front where the front of the bed stiffens the sides. But it's really important in the rear. I'd never tie anything heavy to the rear stake pockets like I showed in the front. Brad's attachment points are much better.

Thinking about the direction of the pull is important. But neither down nor straight are always the best. You want the tie down strap to be going in the opposite direction that the load is trying to go. A tall object is going to try to tip over to the front in a stop, which will make the top of the object move up and forward as it tips, so a strap going down and back is best. But a low heavy object is only going to try to slide forward, so any "down" on the strap is wasted tension.

Tying into the stake pockets like I did is pretty high, which can be pretty bad. But I used those tie down points primarily to run straps to the handle bars of dirt bikes to keep them from tipping from side to side, so it was good for that purpose. It also wouldn't be bad for tying off a tall object (like a refrigerator) to keep it from tipping from side to side.

When I tied dirt bikes into my truck I ran another tie down from low on the rear of the bike (usually the rear axle) down to the bumper mounts (running the strap between the tailgate and the bed). Almost straight back with a little down was good for a load with a lower CG like that.

 

How about some Bull Rings................

Truck Accessories | Pickup Bed Products

 

I didn't think these Bull Rings would fit our Year F-150's..But I have a Set of Tie Downs that look just like these on the back 2 Stake Pockets,and I'm not sure who makes them because the 1st owner put them in. I'd like to have a Set for the front 2 Stake Pockets to, but I couldn't find any that supposed to fit my 1995..