Drilling into bed

I'm making a DIY fridge/freezer slider. I need to screw or bolt it down in the bed. Any tips or advice on this? Obviously I'm going to try and use shallow screws or bolts and it'll be on the passenger side towards tailgate, so I should be good as far as gas tank.

 

Drill into it, you're fine. I've drilled several holes in mine. It'll shoot up a lot of dust.

 

yeah, i just gotta get under there and see how much clearance there is to get the nuts onto the bolts

 

i'm mounting the slider onto L-brackets so the bracket should distribute the weight to the bed
...i'll post pics later

 

Bolt into the OEM fittings, there are enough of them and they are super strong. Nothing worse than a Swiss cheese bed, all you’ll do is piss off the next owner.

 

Getting ready to put a few in my bed to mount a Swing Case. As to the next owner, I really won't be in a position to care. You see before this the last vehicle I bought was my '82 Jeep Scrambler (new). So assuming this vehicle lasts as long and I'm in my late 60's, I'll be dead when it comes time for someone else to own it.

 

Double check what’s under the bed. There’s been a few threads about drilling through filler necks haha.

 

Heck I know a guy that was burning through the deck plate of a Henderson class destroyer and cut into a fuel line. That was a fun fire.

 

Shouldn't have any problems near the tailgate. I drilled 4 holes for my fridge slide then used some rivnuts and stainless steel hardware. There's a lot of empty space under the bed. I also cut some holes in my bed mat and sandwiched it between the fridge slide and the bed.

 

Hey Joesrcool, I'm thinking about putting some rivnuts in the bedsides to attach some tie-downs (inside the bed). Did you see any sign of the composite material cracking or deforming after you put the rivnuts in? If you had to guess, how much load do you think a tie-down attached with two rivnuts could safely handle?

 

I would use jack nuts over rivet nuts. Rivet nuts work well in metal because they expand as well as creating a small flange. Jack nuts dont expand, but the create a huge flange. Expanding rivet nuts in a composite bed puts pressure on the hole and will cause it to crack.

Here is a jack nut.


Here are the different kinds of nuts in some plastic. You can see the far right side is a rivet nut and how it bows the material and can cause the hole to crack.
Middle is a rubber one that works well. Left side is a jack nut, If you need more support, you can put a metal washer in the jack nut and it will create a even stronger mount.

 

Put mine right on top of the bed mat too.

 

I used rivnuts for simplicity, as I thought I'd be taking the fridge slide out more often. The rivnuts allow me to unscrew the screw/bolt without having to worry about catching the nut on the other side. The bed floor was thicker than I thought, and I imagine the bedside would be the same. I've had the fridge mounted for months and it's seen several offroad trips and moderate wheeling. There are no signs of fatiguing and nothing has ever come loose. I have 4 holding the fridge slide in, and with a full fridge, it's maybe 70-80lbs of weight. I'm pretty confident I won't have any issues.

 

Yeah, I could never live without my bed mat, and thought it was a good idea to sandwich it between the slide and the bed.

 

Use a drill bit limiter. Set it at 1/4 inch and you wont have any problems. Otherwise do like I did and use a step drill.

 

Yeah, those Jacknuts look like the way to go. I'd like to get some washers on the backside to reinforce, but it's a beeotch accessing the other side which is why I was thinking rivnuts might be simplest. I've got some pretty light duty tie downs on there now that I put on with nuts and bolts and I'd like to avoid having to do that again. I think I'll pickup some jacknuts. Thanks for the input.

 

The jack nuts without washers would still be better than the rivet nuts, Im actually ordering a bunch to replace all the bolts with nuts I used to put my o-tracks into my bed. Installing bolts with nuts was by far the worst idea I could of had while installing these rails, I had to duct tape a box wrench to the nut, then drive the bolt in with the drill holing the wrench didnt fall off..... so its time to remove them all and put in the jack nuts....

 

I was thinking rivnuts for simplicity too. If I were mounting to the floor, I'd probably do the same. I didn't know Jacknuts were a thing though. They seem less likely to pull out of the bedside than a rivnut would. Thanks for the input

 

I feel your pain man. I put 5 tiedowns on each side of my bed with nuts and bolts and 3 on the front side. Many foul words were said and many beers consumed putting those damned things on. Jacknuts will be so much easier.

 

Yeah, I finally grabbed a neighbor to finish the last few bolts. My tie downs take 8 bolts per big one, and 3 bolts for each small one. So I ended up doing 22 bolts with nuts... 19 of them I did by my self with the duct tape.