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The other day I was under my truck just looking around and noticed there’s a ton of empty space in the sides of the bed! This seems like entirely wasted space to me.
Has anyone ever tried putting a storage box (or two) in that empty space and having an access door on the side of the bed for it? I’m picturing similar to the storage compartments you find on RVs.
While searching for existing examples of this, it seems Ford did it from the factory back in the 60’s and 70’s. No idea why they stopped, because it seems incredibly useful.
Here’s an example from one of those older trucks.
While I don’t have the skills to do it, it doesn’t seem like it would be an overly hard mod for someone good with working metal, or a custom truck bed builder?
Not a bad idea for sure but, Ram has come with a great idea on bed storage AND, you can get a tool box that fits behind the rear wheel wells inthe ned and swings out for better access. My buddy had two of the installed when his fiberglass cover was installed. Very handy.
Not a bad idea for sure but, Ram has come with a great idea on bed storage AND, you can get a tool box that fits behind the rear wheel wells inthe ned and swings out for better access. My buddy had two of the installed when his fiberglass cover was installed. Very handy.
Thanks for the welcome!
Yep, both of those are great in certain regards, but they interfere with the existing bed space with varying consequences. What I’m proposing (and what Ford did long ago) leaves the bed space (including bed rails) entirely untouched.
With Ramboxes you lose notable bed volume. This is particularly impactful when hauling loose material such as dirt, mulch, etc. Additionally, because they’re top-opening they prevent putting on a canopy or, extending to HD trucks, a slide-in camper.
Edit: Other critical flaw with the Ramboxes is that they’re only available on Ram trucks.
For toolboxes behind the wheel well you lose bed volume, though to a lesser degree. More critically, the ones I’ve seen can’t be accessed while latched behind the wheel well, making them inaccessible while the bed is loaded. Even if they could be accessed from the top while in their latched position, this wouldn’t be practical with a canopy or slide-in camper installed.
I had this option on one of the many fords I have owned, not sure if it was a 1968 F250 SCS or a 1976 F250 Highboy that had this option, If all you are doing is highway driving it is a good option, If you get off road at all then it winds up being a big collector of dirt and road debri eventually leading to rust problems.
I had this option on one of the many fords I have owned, not sure if it was a 1968 F250 SCS or a 1976 F250 Highboy that had this option, If all you are doing is highway driving it is a good option, If you get off road at all then it winds up being a big collector of dirt and road debri eventually leading to rust problems.
Just my opinion based upon my experience
Very true... and this is why Ford stopped doing it. If you look at Dodge/Ram, they incorporate this into the top of the bed, not the bottom side and the Chev/GMC tailgates, IMHO, guaranteed, that multi-purpose functional design will cost owners down the road with rustout issues.
Thanks for the thoughts! I definitely go off-road with my truck, so I guess it's not feasible to seal super effectively? I figured with RVs and service bodies doing it, it should be possible in the side of a factory bed. It's all the same principles, and many of those service bodies see a hard off-road life.
I reached out to an aftermarket truck bed installer, which claim to do custom beds, and asked about having this done but it's well outside their scope of work. I guess custom for them involves assembling pre-built components in unique ways. I'll keep mulling this over and may reach out to another company I know of that does fully custom metal work, including from-scratch bumpers.
Remember Ford had the F350 Camper Special with a longer wheelbase (140" VS 133") that had the spare on the right side in front of the tire also. Any more with the way the majority of the beds are 5.5 and 6.5 there aren't really any place to put a tool box like that under the bed floor level to not interfere with the inside of the bed.
