muddy Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 Evenening folks, getting to the point in my disco project where i want to start and build the flat bed back. It will have four rails running front to back (two middle ones picking up body resting perches, two outers for the edge of the bed) And at least 3 side to sides picking up on the rearmost bodyspigots and the seatbelt anchors aswell as the front of the bed/ headboard. Any gaps that look a little large will be supported with 25x25x2ish box. I think i will use 12 or 18mm ply/rihno board as the covering material. I will have the outer box sat approx 20mm proud of the inner rails/supports so as not to damage the edges of the ply when loading/unloading and or crashing into things. I have a few lengths or BB laying round and considered making the outer frame from this (or scaffold) but have decided i want box so i can hole saw the outside face to make a sort of modular system to hook ratchet straps into. (sort of like DD did with lewis' trayback 90 many moons ago) I have some approx 80x50x4 or 4 lying round (rockslider stuff) that i nearly started to use today but then got all indecisive It will have to take an absolute minimum of 1tonne and more likley say 1.5 on the safe side. So what thickness box am i looking at? my immediate thoughts were 4mm approx 75x25 / 75x40 for the outer edge's and again 4mm ish 75x40/50 for the centre rails but is all this going to be overkill? not enough? I dont want to massively over spec on such a large area and make the payload really suffer but i need something capable of agricultural use. Please ignore IVA/SVA VOSA whats legal, whats not, who's just popped into no.23 and what a disco springs/axle/alloy wheels/postman will 'safely' carry. Cheers, Will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 For those of us not familiar with chassis layout and position of mount points, you say you want to carry 1.5T, but whats the distance between supports that you deck will be subject too? for long spans you need tougher material...I;m sure you know that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddy Posted January 24, 2012 Author Share Posted January 24, 2012 Approx 400mm off the top of my head. It is however unlikely to see a great deal of point loading so doesn't have to be massively over specked if that makes sense. My thinking was that a rockslider will take the impact of the whole side of a motor crashing down onto it when off roading, these have at least twice the span between supports and would be taking a semi point loading of 1 - 2 tonnes and seem to not bend, so is 4 mm therefore overkill or better to keep up to continuous stress and strain over time that a load bed is subject to and a rock slider is not really. Will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 Right, see where you're coming from now. The other issue to think about is affecting the CofG by adding hugh amounts of weight high up. How long are we talking about for this bed, and I presume its going over the top of the wheels? Your other option is to use lighter section and undertruss it, adding strength without necessarily adding excessvie weight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddy Posted January 24, 2012 Author Share Posted January 24, 2012 Yes its going over the tyres, approx 5inches above a 31". The bed will be 1700 ish long, I havnt decieded whether or not to support under the headboard (probably will sitting on the A frame X member) Mounts from the headboard back (spacing from each other) are approx: 300mm.......400mm............720mm..... Trussing would be difficult as the tyre is in the way of the middle two, the headboard will be a sort of upside down truss at the front and there will be a truss ish light frame under the rear. Also have been looking at it some more today and think that the rockslidery stuff may be the way forward unless anyone can see an obvious mistake. Will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Davies Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Hi, any build pics of this? Sounds just like the idea I have been toying with. Had a quick look at the members vehicles section but couldn't find anything Cheers Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddy Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 No pics yet as the busybodys will be dribbleing and fitting on the floor and i cant be arsed with all that right now, i'll put a pic up when its finished (hopefully in the next fortnight). Slight change of plan today as i went down the yard and reileved my old man of his 130 dropside body... i think it will fit however it looks a little wrong but we can soon alter that..... The upside is i just need some 125 or 150mm channel to sit it on. Will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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