Rail for truck : firewood

Actually it depends on the load rating of your truck. The pickups that I know of have a sticker on the drivers door post that give the load rating. Don't exceed this and you will be ok. As an example, I had a heavy 3/4 ton that I had side boards on to the top of the cab, filled it to the roof line and was fine. Now I have a 1/2 ton 6 foot bed and don't fill it as much. The 3/4 ton had the suspension and brakes to do it, the 1/2 ton doesn't.

Agree with the others. If it's a late model standard 1/2 ton, about all the wood you want to haul is what will fit in the body. I've seen them go by here loaded so much the front tires were almost floating. No way in heck they could stop that truck or have good steering in an emergency.

BTW, there'll be a big difference in weight between hauling green wood and seasoned fire wood. You'll be able to load much more dry before running into problems.

Just 2-cents.

Lee

Ok this begs the question , how do you increase the load rate or do you want to ? Has anybody hear anything good about air hitches ?

That looks like a dump bed.

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First thing is look at the sidewalls of your tires for load rating. Most trucks have passenger car rated tires usually because they are cheaper when replacing. If the tire size is Pxxx/75/15 it is a pass. car rated tire. A light truck tire would start with LTxxx/75/15 which has a higher load carrying capacity. Most trucks have very light duty rear ends with basically passenger car brakes. A weight carrying rear end would have a full floating axle and 13" brakes if drum.

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Need a little history lesson . How have truck bed changed ? Have they gotten worse are far as what you can haul , etc ? Thanks Beeman . Add one more thing to my list of improvements.

You can't generally change the load rating of a pickup. It is based on the frame, engine, gearing, brakes, springs, & shocks. Buy a heavy duty truck if you need more capacity.

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Drew, we have a 1977 Ford Crewcab. We can put full 4'x8' sheets of plywood in the body and close the tail gate.

Just my opinion.... over the years many pickup trucks evolved from being true work vehicles to the equivalent of a passenger car. While the outward styling was beefed up for the macho look, the opposite happened to what is underneath that massive amount of sheetmetal and fiberglass.

A few years ago I researched what was needed to pull a 5th wheel travel trailer. Found out some models of pickup trucks were actually overloaded when they had a full tank of gas and adult passengers. And, I'm talking about full size pickups, not the mini or small versions (whatever the correct term for them today.)

Even beefed up with a full towing package (oversized radiator, transmission cooler, etc.) they couldn't safely pull much more than a tiny pop up canvas travel trailer.

My 2-cents, is to shop carefully if you want a work truck. And, it may indeed be worth it to seek out an older model one in decent conditon and spend a little money on whatever repairs are needed.

Lee

Whatever you do, though, make sure you can keep that hard-won firewood. There's few things more scary than seeing a big lump of firewood slung off on oncoming vehicle (flatbed truck, so help me!) on a corner and come bounding downhill down the road at you, leaping and twisting, at a closing speed of over a hundred miles an hour. Near to pooped my panties, I can tell you.

My favorite was watching a flatbed overloaded with firewood go into a flat spin on the interstate. Went around something like 30 times, spraying firewood everywhere. Lot of inertia when you get a truck and load like that rotating. The truck gradually came to halt in the dirt median. Upright, doors closed, occupants bugeyed and probably quite messy.

Oh heck yea, overload your truck with firewood. Don't moderate by taking two trips when you can load it up for just one.