Do bed stiffeners just transfer stress somewhere else?

Its not a l5/s1 lumbar fusion....

 

How about a piece of heavy gage aluminum, cut to shape, under a bed mat.

 

Could just create a larger support to handle the stress from the bed flexing.

An "all hands on deck" approach.

 

Are you a chiropractor? What are you talking about? Back brace, knee brace, cast for your broken arm? Which one shouldn't I use doc?

 

I'm thinking Kinesiologist

 

The issue the bed reinforcements fix is the hard angle of the bed.

The sharp right angle of the bed wall to the bed floor makes the functionality of the pickup bed physically useful. But to properly distribute the load of the bedside into the lower frame section, a 45 degree triangular piece from the top side of the bedside to the floor would perform the job the best. However this has the adverse side effect of closing off the bed, and it's no longer a pickup.

Aluminum can work, but aluminum thermally expands differently, as well as fatigues differently. So it's a less than ideal material to add support to a mild steel structure.

All any of the bed stiffeners are doing is adding parallel lengths of material to distribute the load over a larger surface area, the same fundamentals as how any structural I-beam works.

 

And if the load ever becomes enough to impact the stiffener, replace that for cheap and be glad the brace went first.

 

Those can be difficult to source...

 

Not from Kwikvette...

 

Not any more. Especially not for him lol

 

The new failure point with any stiffener is the through-bolt mounting locations. But the design of the stiffeners would only allow forces to "exit" the bed space.

Frankly, if the bolt holes shear on a stiffener, its likely the stiffeners bore the entire weight of the truck during a rollover.

 

Great explanation. Thank you. My concern was by not allowing the flex in the bed walls and transferring that would I be kicking the can down the road. By this explanation I feel more confident that this is likely not the case.

Yes, Sports Chiropractor so I deal with biomechanics a lot. Oh every type of brace has a purpose but also has a consequence as well somewhere else.

Close...see above. I do use a lot of kinesiology.

Thanks great explanation. No concern about it becoming to rigid? Some flex is needed no?

 

Yeah, @Kwikvette knows a guy

 

Bridges have what I think are called "buckler plates" that cover junctions of I-beams and spread the stress over 12 rivets and 2-3 feet down the beam (both sides). Same total stress, but the mechanical design advantages of spreading out the stress means more metal must fail to see total failure.

 

a few pieces of metal aren't going to fix the real flex in the frame. they're correcting the flex introduced from having a gigantic unsupported opening in the rear of the pickup box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LO6uxy11I

 

Hey, I know that tattoo.

 

Anyone have stiffeners and and a 2 drawer decked setup? Any compatibility issues with any brand?

 

The way I like to explain it is bed stiffeners prevent side fumbling in the lunar wainshaft.

 

That's only because it consisted of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes

 

Correct. As utilized in the successful implementation of Milford trunions.