Bed Stiffener Alternative Solution???

Given their history with frames, etc... I think that they are also concerned with RUST. The plastic bed isn't going to have any.

 

Thanks! May not be as good as the steel stiffeners, but I feel like it will help a good bit.

 

If you are still planning on going the Overland bar way, I have a set of the CBI one's that I've had for a year that I'm looking at selling. I ended up purchasing a softopper. If your located close to London. Though now I realized I am no longer under the Ontario page

 

I don't have any weight on the rails of my bed, so I can't confirm this, but I imagine a bed divider would also work to support the bedsides. My bed divider is super sturdy as well as super useful (not my photo).

 

No... I’m way down in Alabama. I like the soft tops too!

 

I think that with the straps would help.

 

That strap configuration would definitely provide some help, but would be limited by the pull-off strength (and to some extent the stiffness) of the back end of the multi-rails, and unless the sliding fittings for the rails are designed to be a "fusible link" to stop the rails from pulling away from the bed you might pull out a couple of the screws that mount the rails in if you were to really load it up. Putting in some big eyebolts with grade 8 nuts and some good thick fender washers through the upper and lower areas of the back edge of the bed and putting crossed cables/straps from corner to corner when you're going to put really heavy load onto the bed bars might be the best you can do without serious modification.

I'm not 100% sure how much help the bed corner reinforcements actually provide; they have to be better than nothing, but the geometric constraints make it impossible to really put in what would be the ideal kind of reinforcement to have back there.

The good news for you is that it takes some pretty serious weight and a very bumpy ride to create the kind of shear load that'll put the bed shape rails into much real danger. I saw a guy out in Moab that broke his bed by doing a lot of heavy trail driving with a full bed rack (about 12-18 inches taller than bed bars, I think) that had a RTT on top and I can't remember how much other gear strapped to the rack; but he had come out from PA via I don't know what combination of highway driving and overlanding and had probably been driving trails in that rig for years. A lot of weight (maybe 400-500 pounds or more) on the bars probably isn't great for the bed rails, but what causes problems with the shape of the bed and the back end deforming is if you get a lot of lateral force coming from that weight, and that kind of lateral force comes from either rocking hard side-to-side like you have on off-road terrain or high-speed cornering (which you shouldn't be doing with a lot of weight that high off the road surface anyway due to the rollover danger it causes)

 

Wow! Thanks for all of that. I appreciate it. Yes, one of my concerns with this setup is whether deck rail system can handle it. I’m not planning to do major off-roading. So maybe I’m making more out of it than I should.

 

that won't stiffen the bed, it will pull it in. Bed stiffeners keep that from happening

 

I agree with that, but I’m thinking with the overland bars mounted it won’t be able to pull it in.

 

If you'll mostly be on pavement and decently graded fire roads, you should probably be fine with a RTT on bed bars. Putting in some reinforcements in the back end of the bed aren't going to hurt anything but probably aren't necessary unless you're going to push it pretty hard off-axis and creating shear (twisting load) on the frame and bed box.

 

Do you think there’s any harm using the straps as I have them with a tent mounted on the overland bars? Or do you think I’m unnecessarily risking pulling the deck rail off?

 

crossing tension members like that will help stiffen the open end of the bed box against twisting shear loading. You're correct that the preloaded tension in the lines will also want to pull the rails together as well, but the bed bars mounted to the rails will oppose that effect pretty effectively.

I can't prove it in any way that would matter in a forum like this, but I've been making a living as a structural analysis engineer in the aerospace industry for over 20 years. I'd have to do a lot of math (and get a lot more information) to predict what the real limits of using ratchet straps like that will do, but functionally that kind of cross-tension reinforcement has been used to provide shear rigidity to rectangular frames for over a century in applications from construction to aircraft (the Wright Brothers' plane featured this kind of cable reinforcement, as did most biplanes and triplanes that flew for the next 30+ years)

 

Don't crank them down too tight and you should be OK. I don't know enough about what the hardware on the back side of the screws that mount the bed rails in looks like to know how much concern there would be for a pull-out or pull-through failure in that connection. If you're not going to be hitting any serious terrain, I personally wouldn't worry about putting those straps on if it were my truck.

 

Thank you for your detailed and educated responses!

 

First let me say Welcome to TW and Merry Christmas!

My '06 TRD OR AC has had a cap/shell with a rack from day 1 (14+ years). While the rack on top didn't see much use, it has carried a 20' extension ladder (wood, NOT light), lumber, plywood (full sheets), etc. Never thought of bed stiffeners. I had noticed an issue with the paint on the top, driver's side corner of the cap - perhaps due to flexing? After seeing all of the TW posts and some of the marketing propaganda, I decide to examine the gap between the tailgate and the right & left bedsides - what I found was that the gap on the passenger's side was perfectly uniform and on the driver's side it was a hair wider at the top than at the bottom. Was this from 'bed spread' or was it like that at mile 1? I can't honestly say.

As some have said - it's cheap insurance - IF you can deal with the minor obstacle of their presence when loading things in & out of the bed.

I will likely install them on my new '21 TRD OR AC before its cap arrives. I like the version seen in this clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdu-JeQb9LU), but the included link to R4T shows a different version (https://www.runnin4tacos.com/products/bed-stiffeners-for-2016-2020-toyota-tacoma). Guess I'll have to continue looking.

 

In case you're interested, I just found this in the owner's manual. I'm not smart enough to make any calculations though. Not sure how quickly the stresses could approach 440lbs.

 

Sounds like you have good luck without them even with a load up top.

 

This is hilarious. You’ll fit right in (to the third gen section)

WELCOME TO TW