Best choices for bed stiffeners

FIFY

 

Dad drives a chevy 2500hd from 2001 2 winters ago noticed large crack in the bedside and needed welding repairs done. Not taking any chances on a new truck. $100 and you don't have to worry about anything... No brainer to me to get them when any truck bed can crack after time and abuse

 

What if by stiffenning those two side channels, you are transferring the vibration and force to another location that is less reliant? What if that area starts to break apart?

That is the chance you are taking. Hillbilly engineering vs Toyota engineering. I’m not saying I disagree with you, but there are no guarantees these things do anything positive, and might actually result in something negative. At very least the rust will begin the minute you start drillin’ all the holes in that nice electroplated and painted bedside pillar.

 

These Toyotas are being modified and used in ways the engineers at Toyota never imagined... or weren't allowed to imagine.

When you put a RTT, Rotopax, axes, shovels, spare tires, ect on the bedsides... these loads were never considered by Toyota engineers in their design. Now go bouncing those loads off-road, with odd angles and dynamic forces...

I'm not saying these stiffeners are a miracle cure, but I assure you, they transfer some of the forces from the bedside to the frame (where the stiffener attaches).

Maybe its because I live in a fairly rust free zone (PNW, no salt)... but rust would be the least of my concerns. Especially if the bolt holes are prepped with paint.

 

Well sometimes the laziest workers get the job done best Most things done on this forum I'm sure Toyota Engineers wouldn't agree with. To each their own personally I don't mind the risk. Others may and that's why each build is different!

 

I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up with a set, but I question my own thought process. I think I really just need something to blow some money on because I’m bored.

 

Well said. I agree.

 

LOL. I bought mine because "they were there, and I wanted something to do".

I hemmed and hawed over whether to install them. Read every post about them. Some promoting them and some detesting them. Some were success stories with "real" results. Others were horror stories of them doing more harm than good.

Ultimately I said fuck it, and just installed them. I figured logic dictated they may help a little and would be piece of mind against possibly damaging my bed offroad.

End all, I've used it for the tie down points more than anything. For that alone, they are worth the install. Works great with the tailgate down and a bungee net across the back to secure loads.

 

Just got my @TOTAL CHAOS bed stiffeners in. Hopefully it’ll fit with my roll and lock.

 

Ah, bro. You said never . . .

Steel:






Stainless Steel:









Add some ChroMoly to the bunch:



It really depends on heat treat, but they are generally equivalent other than cost, if you have the ability to spec it out.

 

Yeah well.....your not going to find people makin hydraulic cylinders, engine parts, leaf springs, crane jibs, good gun receivers, or tooling machines out of stainless, without also sacrificing strength.

Tough stainless exists, but NEVER EVER as tough as the toughest carbon steel.

 

You are trying to hard. It's okay though.

 

My father died in a stainless steel accident and I guess I’m not really over it. He was moving a piano out of a 2nd floor apartment, when the stainless steel shackle let go. He wasn’t killed by the falling piano, but fell down a manhole jumping out of the way.

 

I installed Total Chaos bed stiffeners. These seem like the best design and more reputable.

 

They're stout and almost look oem. The reason I bought them is for more tie downs.

 

Stainless STEEL is steel, it isn’t carbon steel. If adding carbon to iron was the only option to gain strength, your arguement would have merit. But that isn’t even remotely true. Carbon adds strength but it also increases corrosion attack. Remove all or almost all carbon from steel and it doesn’t rust (under normal conditions) Thats why the find unrusted 800 year old damscus steel swords on shipwrecks. Fold the red hot steel a few hundred times and pound it with a hammer to forge the matrix and remove carbon. Its a slow and expensive process. Add chromium, nickel,cobalt, vanadium, molybdenum and niobium to iron, nitride it and it is as strong as any steel, stronger than most. Its expensive and is unnecessary unless you need the corrosion resistant properties. Steel works excellent everwhere else for far less. Add enough chrome/nickel/cobalt to make superalloys and you get incredible strength and heat and corrosion resistance. Take a bar of the steel of your choice and a bar of a superalloy (ie Hastelloy X) heat both to 1800 degrees F and then drop then while red hot them in ice water. Run tensile strength tests on both. The steel will be weak and brittle, the Hast X will be as strong as it was before. You could heat it and drop it in water hundreds of times and it will still be strong. If cheap chinese stainless steel fasteners are your benchmark you’re making assumptions that are wildly wrong.

 

More tie downs is definitely a big plus to rocking TOTAL CHAOS Bed Stiffeners

Functional and they look good

TOTAL CHAOS
WWW.CHAOSFAB.COM

 

They do fit with the Roll and lock. There’s enough room between the guides and the bed to slide the bed stiffeners between. @TOTAL CHAOS good stuff

 

All these do is pinch the bottom rear lip of the composite bed to the rear bed stiffener(heavy u shaped steel highlighted in yellow this is what the back of your bed is resting on) The stiffener on your truck is a lot heavier and stronger than these little brackets. The composite bed has a flange molded into it (highlighted in yellow)that bolts it to the front side of the vertical rear bed stiffener. These are a waste of money.

 

It wasn’t the steel that did it, though.