Transporting Plywood and long boards

First "real" post here and trying to contribute...

One of the first things I did with the Tacoma being my first pickup was to build a hitch mounted wood hauling aid. So I tweaked a paper template of a curved arm to obtain the right length and height for wood boards to be level, then used 4 template cutouts out of 1/2" ply, marine epoxied together to form the arm. The height aligns with the shelf in the bed. Then a simple oak arm and support beams to finish off the shape as well as a small amount of CF sheet to help fill the 2x2 hitch gap and provide a little more strength right a the load point. Being pretty familiar with epoxying wood using West Systems Epoxy, there is an art to this for a very strong bond. If interested, I'll provide more details how to do this.

Support in the front is just 2 oak boards planed and angled at the ends to fit into the grooves in the bed.

Had some bright blue paint laying around, so used it. I know you can buy these made of metal ready to go, but for how little I would use it the cost was too much.

This worked great hauling wood and estimate at least 250lbs I had on it bouncing for about 95 miles on back roads in Ohio.

Cost was $0, but I already had everything needed. The marine epoxy isn't cheap, however.






The longest board is 16 ft. I had 7 pieces of thin-ish 4x8ft ply and 77 board feet of wood for boat building aboard. Obviously you need to hold the front end of the wood down to keep from losing the load. Plywood on top with straps did it. I wish I had D rings down low though.

 

Very elegant solution, but way too much work. Simply keep your tailgate up and use straps and ratchets to tie the board down into the bed. It works for 12 footers. For really long boards up to 16 ft. I use the OEM roof rack and tie the boards down to the rack and add a front&rear strap.

 

pretty neat and very creative!

 

Looks good, you definitely put some work into it... I remember a thread about adding an additional mounting "bolt" on each side to reposition the tailgate to the exact height of the wheel wells so a 4'x8' piece of plywood laid flat. I searched, can't find the thread

 

Dcsb problems make me laugh so much sometimes. Great innovation op.

 

Yeah with a LB you could just toss that stuff in the back and close the gate.

 

So much easier to just buy one of these.....

Darby Industries 944 Extend-A-Truck

https://www.amazon.com/Darby-Extend...qid=1499340409&sr=1-1&keywords=extend+a+truck

 

This is what I have. It was very handy when I had to haul home six boxes of vinyl siding. I put some reflective tape on mine to make it more visible.

 

Yeah, too much work..... and does look kind of dangerous. Imagine taking a left or right turn and smacking the car next to you with the board swinging wide. No bueno bad hombre

 

haha I know right? oh man, that extra few inches really fits those 16 footers splendidly!

By the way, that looks great OP, good job!

 

@beertimecontinuum Show them how it's done please...

 

I like the idea, and might do something like this in the future if I don't buy another full size soon. What sucks though, is the weight of everything takes away what you can carry. But Tacomas suck for hauling even when you can use your full payload. So good way to work with what you have.

 

Yea, I just bought one from Harbor Freight. I think I paid about $50.

 

Did you, at the very least, put a flag on the end of that?

 

What about the one strapped under?

 

Lol

Yeeesssss

 

The first one is 4x 2x10x16' with 6x 2x10x12'. Straps up my reinforced tailgate to my swingouts with ratchet straps and it was still ass heavy in my 5 foot bed. Strapped the front down with a big ass ratchet strap.

This one is a full stick of 1.75x.120 DOM. Ratchet strapped the back with a flag, winches the front. It's on top of my rear axle and flexed up to my skids. Stuck out 4 or 5 feet either side