Travelling weight?

[72stepside]

I'm driving the beast up to Knoxville in a couple of weeks and am thinking about adding some weight to the rear of the bed to make the ride a bit smoother. I have a short wheel base that seems to magnify all the bumps in the road. I've gone places with a load and it really seems to smoothe out the ride.

I have the ends of a crate made of shockingly nice looking wood. I figured I could make a box out of those and 2x6's to get 7.16 cubic feet of space. With the weight of sand at 100 pounds per cubic foot, I can get alot of weight in that thing. Obviously I'm not going with the 700 pounds that I can put in there, probably about half that. With all the sand available here in Florida, fine tuning the weight won't be a problem.

I can fasten it to the bed floor with bolts so I'm not too conerned about it getting away from me. Obviously this will be temporary; just want it for the trip.

Anybody ever try an arrangement like this? If I wasn't scared to not have a spare tire, I'd fasten it under the bed.

[ezernut9mm]

alot of people around here do something like that for sandbags in the winter for traction. instead of bolting it to the bed floor you make an "H" shape out of the wood so that there is a long 2x4 in front of and behind the fender humps and they are bolted together with a 2x4 on each side just inside the fender hump. just a thought so you don't have to drill into your bed.

[mjhaltom]

What about one of those water bag traction assist things? I'm not sure how expensive they are, but they would be a lot easier to deal with than sand.

[72stepside]

alot of people around here do something like that for sandbags in the winter for traction. instead of bolting it to the bed floor you make an "H" shape out of the wood so that there is a long 2x4 in front of and behind the fender humps and they are bolted together with a 2x4 on each side just inside the fender hump. just a thought so you don't have to drill into your bed.

I have a stepside so the fender humps don't apply. I think I'm going to get some longer bed strip bolts and just run them through the bottom of the sand box to beneath the bed floor. But, if I had a fleetside bed, the H shape would be the ticket!

[rjewkes]

what about a semi tire or two? rims and all.

[ezernut9mm]

alot of people around here do something like that for sandbags in the winter for traction. instead of bolting it to the bed floor you make an "H" shape out of the wood so that there is a long 2x4 in front of and behind the fender humps and they are bolted together with a 2x4 on each side just inside the fender hump. just a thought so you don't have to drill into your bed.

I have a stepside so the fender humps don't apply. I think I'm going to get some longer bed strip bolts and just run them through the bottom of the sand box to beneath the bed floor. But, if I had a fleetside bed, the H shape would be the ticket!

gotcha. looks like your idea will be the right one. never even considered you having a stepper.

[FORDification]

Hopefully nobody on this forum has a stepside. You mean a flareside, right?

[ezernut9mm]

Hopefully nobody on this forum has a stepside. You mean a flareside, right?

[72stepside]

Hopefully nobody on this forum has a stepside. You mean a flareside, right?

Ooooo, never quite thought about it like that. I've just always called them stepsides cause the have a step on the side.

Hmmmm, might have to ponder a name change!!!

[68F250]

Hey that's not as bad as a sweptside, what the heck is a sweptside?

[wt4speed#2]

Mine is a stepside too

[mjhaltom]

CINDERBLOCKS!!

[kaptnkaos]

alot of people around here do something like that for sandbags in the winter for traction. instead of bolting it to the bed floor you make an "H" shape out of the wood so that there is a long 2x4 in front of and behind the fender humps and they are bolted together with a 2x4 on each side just inside the fender hump. just a thought so you don't have to drill into your bed.

The same principle would work with a flare side...
use 3 8' 2"x4"s.
one along each bedside and one cut in half to make two cross bars
then yer in business

take care,
KaptnKAOS