Anyones else have their bed crack like this ?

Anyway, when it comes to bed stiffeners, I like Greenlane Offroad because they are stainless. Because of their positioning, it’s hard to keep them painted. Nice not to have to worry about rust.

 

NKAWTG A's and R's. Did the same as you at Depot except I was on C-5's and C17's

 

Back in my day we called those secret squirrels.

 

Just ordered these (Blemished) after seeing your post. $45 and free shipping. Can’t beat that!

 

My Total Chaos bed stiffeners don't interfere at all with the OEM bed mat. It actually has a cutout from the factory.

 

At the prompting of a fellow Tacomaworld member, I checked mine this morning. I do have a small crack on the right side of the bed, see photo.

My truck is 2016 TRD Off Road. I bought it for offroad use.

I bought it used, but in the last 4.5 years I have put 75K miles on it, and 18K of that is harsh offroading.

I am retired and spend all of my free time exploring for remote fishing lakes in BC. Usually twice per week from Spring to Fall. I have posted some of those adventures here on the Where Have You Offroaded Today thread.

On more than half of my trips, I have about 1,000 pounds in the truck, and my 10 foot boat up on my Thule rack.

I have also short 2x4 upright pieces under each of the uprights of the roof rack to help carry the load and distribute that load to the bottom of the bed, so that the sides of the bed don’t take as much stress from all the pounding. The dial clamps on Thule Xsporter pro racks wiggle loose from all the pounding on the roads, and down comes your boat onto your truck roof if you do not address that.

My boat tie down straps are also lashed tight to the bottom bed hooks. I see a lot of guys who tie them to the roof rack only, which I personally do not trust. If the roof rack comes loose, there goes the boat sailing down the road.

So I might get bed stiffeners too, but no rush given how the truck is driven the last 4.5 years and that is the extent of the damage I see. Doing this kind of offroading for 40 years now, and I don’t like to rush things.

Slow down dear, no rush.

 

I would get it looked after sooner than later. My experience with the cracks on my 2nd gen is once started they progress quickly. You'll notice the gap between the bedside and the tailgate get progressively wider. If wanting Canadian, BCC in Abbotsford makes stiffeners, I think I bought Cali Raised but I'm 10 minutes from the border so I can take advantage of cheap/free US shipping to the store across the line from me.

 

Did you have bed stiffeners on your truck?

 

As noted above somewhere. I cracked my 2nd gen twice, once warrenty looked after it, second time I removed that cracked peice (not difficult) had the cracks welded up and a 3/16 strap welded around the outside of it. Never an issue after that. This was in the days pre bed stiffeners.

My 3rd gen, I installed bed stiffeners within a month of buying it.

 

i would be inclined to get that welded back together.

 

Showed it today to a friend at a local shop. Will get it welded in a couple weeks, experiment a bit. $20 bucks for the work.

If that gives away, then bed stiffeners.

Man it is amazing what we need to do to keep these modern trucks going.

Old days, throw a couple thousand pounds into the back of the 1986 F150, beat the shit out of it for 13 years, and the bed structurally is as good as new.

New trucks are designed to be an ongoing money sink.

 

It's been a while, but I think it took less than an hour to remove that yoke (the cracked piece) that wraps around the back of the bed on my second gen. It is pretty thin metal to weld and welding a metal 90 degree strap (similar to a shelf bracket) on the back side fixed it.

 

How do you weld composite material?

 

I’m confused. Isn’t the part that’s cracked is composite and not metal?

 

20$? Man where do you find these people? Haha

 

that angle is a metal element. its what you bolt the bed stiffener to.

 

Metal. There is a metal yoke that wraps around the composite bed at the back of the box. It is the same piece the taillights mount to and that you need to drill of mounting need stiffeners.

 

Aah thanks guys. I didn’t even notice.

 

Going to top of bed rail does not make the stiffener inherently stronger than other designs.

 

Ya ya ya boring, no one said it made the stiffener stronger. Troll elsewhere.