Drill into truck bed for sleeping platform support?

Hi y'all,

I'm trying to plan out building a similar version of Overland Under Budget's foldable sleeping platform system (video) on my '02 Extended Cab and the guy I'm working with (a woodworker, not much of a car guy) is concerned about the side rails supporting all the weight of the platform while only being secured by screws to the back of the bed.

He wants to drill some wooden supports into these notches by the wheel well on the bedliner (there's two on each side):


and wants the side rails to be screwed on them, as well as to the back of the bed.

As a beginner to all this, I'm somewhat concerned about drilling into the side of the truck bed and hitting something that shouldn't be hit. Does anyone have general thoughts on drilling stuff into the truck bed, or with a similar build to the above and how much weight it can hold on the 6'2" bed?

Thank y'all!

 

Should be good to go on the sides, only things that could be hit are the fuel filler or the tail lights. Avoid those and you should be golden. I would backup any nut with a fender washer because that metal is not thick.


Weight capacity is probably not a concern, the highest capacity first gens are good for over 1k pounds with that bed.

 

Might want to add bed stiffeners as the sides of the bed can begin to bow outwards.

 

Your drilling through the side of the bed to the outside and are then bolting wood to the inside of the bed .

I look at wood as fuel for the stove.

I can think of a much better and no doubt stronger way I bet Kwickvette can as well with some thought Shoot me a message if your interested

 

Is it possible to repurpose your tie-downs for this? I'm not super familiar with the design you're going for but a lot of sleeper/platform builds I have researched do this to avoid drilling into the bed.

 

Thank you, just shot you over a dm.

I don't think I've seen a tie-down version! I've seen a lot of the versions using the canopy clamps as support but I feel like that might make the platform a bit too high for my comfort.

 

I wish I still had shop access. I think I could fabricate a bracket pretty easily that bolts to the tie downs and would secure those rails in place. We did this in my friend's truck to keep his platform from moving around in the bed, although his platform was a slightly different design.

 

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I used rivnuts to have things bolted into the side of my truck bed. I would trim access points into the plastic liner to attach rather than remove. Tons of little spots for dust to get into the truck bed when driving on dirt roads.

 

Wood is awfully heavy. With the limited weight capacity of these trucks (make no mistake, that 1000 pounds goes FAST when you're counting passengers, fuel, bigger tires, trail armor, etc...). I'd say you should look more into aluminum. Heck, you could probably use steel flat bar and end up lighter than a bunch of 2x4's. Lighter is better.

You could build a very strong self supporting rack system with just some of that aluminum angle from Home Depot with just a hacksaw and a drill and a bunch of bolts. There's also that extruded square conduit stuff that can be bolted together in all sorts of orientations. Super easy, but more expensive that simple angle pieces from the hardware store.

As long as you're bolting into the actual metal bed, and not the plastic bed liner you should be fine. I love rivnuts. I have my hi-lift jack mounted on the side of my bed with them. The main thing is that since the sheet metal is thin, I would use multiple points of contact. Fender washers are probably a good idea, but I haven't needed them with my hi-lift. If you use multiple mounting locations that distribute the load, you should be fine.

If you're going to add an "overlander" setup in the back with a bed platform etc, ditch that bed liner. You're going to end up hacking it all to pieces if you want to hard mount the platform to the bed anyway.