Old Truck Bed and Rack

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Seeing all the very clean rigs with the great beds, nice purpose built racks and other nice posts here, I decided to post a few images of a shop truck we built some years ago.  The bed is all built frame up, beginning with cross pcs and then adding the press braked parts.  CAD for this project was lost before AutoCAD 11 !! and that was just a while ago so no plans exist.  Essentially the entire bed is bent in parts, the welded and a painter did some filling to get a decent finish.The sides of the bed were thinner than the structural so we could bend them to 'match' the factory cab's door panels.Getting a one ton's bed down close enough to the ground to serve out original purpose was tough, so the main cross pieces were all dropped down between the frames and coped over all the tanks, fittings, frame attachments and what not.At least we could keep the 1 ton looking vaguely like a fleet side 3/4 ton of that era.running boards were built of 3/16" 6061 T6 so you could work off them to secure the load on the 3/16" steel deck.Tail gate never did get in the paint booth- typical of our shop - not critical- don't bother to paint it.More on the running boards and the wheel well extensions- just sheet metal cone with a 1/2" bead and rolled/braked cylinder inside as liner.tail gate down showing the deck which is 3/16" plate folded in a 2" x 1-1/4" deep pattern to increase the carrying capacity of that deck.Next: the rack.Cheers,Kevin Morin
Reply:The rack is a pair of sheet metal boxes folded to fit inside one another and an H across the top.  All the material is 3/16" 6061 T6 and all the parts are pressed, then fit to form complete boxes in the vertical and the horizontal.The two main verticals are C's with flanges, with a C without flanges fit to the inner edges of the larger shapes' flange. These joints are MIG'd with 5356 0.045" wire and have held up to some decent loads.Back sill of the bed is 1/4" bent to a couple steps one ends the 3/16" corregated deck, then drops over the back to form the main shelf of the bumper.  This entire back is one piece whittled for the ball insert plate.  Black hole is poor photo of the dead bolt socket, welded in chain held a 3-1/8" 3M tree to the deck by cross chaining.Bedliner has seen some use.The base of all four vertical boxes of the rack are welded to 1/2" plate that has a pair of holes to accommodate 1/2" bolts into a 1" (tapped) plate welded into the top of the bed rails.  Covers are just cheap-o marine screw-in covers that are there to clean up the cutout- not to seal the boxes.Bed sides and tail gate frame are all 3/16" bent to J's or Z's. Along the sides the Z's wrap under corregated deck up to top rail and down a few inches and are lapped by lighter sheet for side panels.  At the gate frame the two boxes are fit to the bed end and side rail and are topped with tapped block to take wing base bolts.I'd had 20 pc of 2-7/8" tube (2-1/2" sched. 80 pipe) 16 -20 feet long on the top of the rack so it seems to be stiff enough to carry some wt.Anyone considering a scratch built truck bed or rack, may be able to get some ideas from this early 90's project that is still hanging around doing its job(s). Cheers,Kevin Morin
Reply:Wow interesting to say the least... must have had some serious time into that thing Nice work.I am curious how you formed 6061-T6 aluminum.... since you cannot bend 6061-T6 anymore than maybe 45* tops before it cracks??Steve1946 Shorthood  -  1958 Blackface  -  1962 Redface  -  1967 Redface  -  1968 Redface -  1970 Blackface  -  2005 300D -  2008 Vantage 300  -and a ton of other welding stuff
Reply:C6.7weldrig, you can bend 6061 T6 all day with a round bead die or multi-shot bends in a brake.  It will strain harden and crack in most single shot bends with a knife edge but not with a 2-3 T diameter bead edge or using a steel knife edge in three and four shot bends.Bend 15-25 degrees, move 1-T and bend another 15-25 degrees.Time was a week (40hrs.) for the fitter and welder (80 total ready to paint) from brake to (begging) the painter to have a go, he took another 28 some hours!  but his original work looked great; we've beat it up something awful in the last 16 and some years.Cheers,Kevin Morin
Reply:why don't I see any pictures of this??