I have a 93 c notched yota and my bed is beat to hell, ive been wanting to make a wood flatbed. Before i do i wanted to get some tips and tricks to the job. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Also can you use trailor lights in some kind of combo with turn signals? Ive never really looked into trailir lights but im wondering how they hook up conpared to stock lights.
a flat bed i would imagine is fairly simple to build... lay your cross beams at the original bed mounts straight across, then build your outer frame rails and so on. the stock bed is roughly 6x5'. ausi guys seem to have allot of these flat bed conversions. although im not partial to them they look pretty trick.
Yup definitely Australia time to get on Google and start searching that's probably your best bet although a lot of landscapers have smaller trucks with flatbeds
I used pretty much all wood for mine... 4 pressure treated x members (2x4's) and 11 planks of douglas fir decking (2x6)... Also some other wood bits for the side and back pieces or whatever you wanna call them and the tail light mounts. I used standard size round trailer lights... LED for the insides, which are brakes and running lights, and non led for the turn signals and outer running lights. This was the cheapest thing I could do with a cost of maybe 100 bucks... lumber is cheap around here - the main expense was the 8- 6" stainless steel bolts and hardware i used to secure it down. One thing i learned from my build... if you want the line of the box to line up exactly with the body lines then use a few thin spacers between the frame mounts and your custom bed so you can adjust it to the exact height you want after assembly is complete.
wood bed BackForty pretty much summed the method Had a professional wood worker at my disposal for a weekend help me build this so he understood the fine points of making it custom basically 4X4's and 1X4's buckets full of bolts and fasteners These things are heavy noticeable from stock as far as braking and drag there is a lot of lighting options and installation is fairly straightforward
Anyone thought about doing this with that composite deck material, the fake wood. Wonder how that would been kicking it over in my head, need to run to lowes to price it
Fake wood might be a good option. Don't know how it would look (I Definitely prefer real wood) but the composite is definitely stable and won't get heavier if it gets wet. I've had my flat deck installed for about a year now and I really like the way it's aging. It's getting to the point where it looks as if it's always been on there. It's getting only moderate use however... mostly hauling my bike around. if my truck was a 'real' work truck i might seriously consider the composite for it's durability. Make sure you post some pics if/when you get it built.
My flat bed originally off a datsun navara welded on mounts to fit the hilux I stripped the paint off resprayed it and replaced the old rottern wood with new timber decking and then covered it in decking oil.
I like this thread... I've always like the way people customize flat beds...when looking for a truck I was OK with buying one with a rusted out bed because I've always wanted to make a custom flat bed. The possibilities are literally endless with what you can design in. If I were to do it I think I would build a steel frame/support, and plank the top with wood. But that's just me. I just saw this one recently, a 1 ton dually flat bed, that he put some type of crane/hoist onto the drivers side. There's also another 1 ton locally that transports a small racecar in his bed.
