M925 deck construction?

[Jim Timber]

What's the bed made out of, and how's it supported?

Does anyone have pics of the underside?


I'd like to use mine (when I buy one) for hauling bagged firewood for delivery via a jib crane on the back and I'm wondering how much support there is to handle adding one, or if I'll need to plan on reinforcing the frame as well.

I've looked around at the pics of peoples builds but seem to only see with or without the bed, and nothing of the bed itself from below.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[wreckerman893]

The floor of the bed is about 1/8 steel. If you made a base plate out of 1/2 plate and mounted the crane to it you could drill into the cross members under the bed and bolt it down with some grade 8 bolts.

 

[Jim Timber]

What gauge is the crossmember and how tall is the rib?

 

[wreckerman893]

What gauge is the crossmember and how tall is the rib?

No idea....maybe someone else can chime in.

 

[61sleepercab]

I have a former railroad mechanics bed truck that had a ton crane mounted on the bed top. The mounting plate was about 1/2 inch plate about 1 foot square in the tool box braces by 2x2 heavy angle iron in the box corners. This all reinforced the Reading Truck body itself which was fairly heavy and the boom was about 8 feet long.
How heavy are the bundles you are hauling? How long is the boom you are planning? Are you thinking of mounting in the tailgate center or in the bed corner?
I saw a guy pick up a lot of engine blocks with a combination hydraulic boom arm with a boat type hand winch which mounted into a hitch receiver on a pickup truck.

My idea would be a crane mounted on a heavy plate attached directly to the truck frame rails with a base even with the truck floor that the crane body could be removed if the truck was used for regular hauling. To mount in a bed corner a heavy box tubing frame would have to go from the crane base to the truck frame, and I would run the frame all the way across both frame rails to minimize twist . I would add bracing to form a triangle between the crane base and the top and bottom of the truck frame.

I do not believe the truck bed itself if stout enough for a crane mounting without bending, flexing and tearing out. Hope this helps Mark

 

[Tinydragon2001]

It can handle alot. I've had at least 10 yards of stone (roughly 20k pounds) in the bed of mine, which I converted to a dump, with higher sides, and it carried that with no problems.

 

[Jim Timber]

I'm thinking a corner mount on one of the rears, but it'll be reinforced into either the bed itself and/or tied to the frame as well.

The problem with tying into the frame is that any additional stiffness defeats the flex designed into the truck. If you change how the truck moves, you end up adding extra stresses when you encounter typical contortions, and that's bad.

I'm thinking a 4x4x4 "bag" or crate full of half a cord of firewood would be the design load, but I'll also need to calculate out what a veneer log weighs as this will be my lumber truck too. I want to be able to roll up into a driveway and unload their wood onto the side out of the way without ever touching it. I might add a bed extension to get a couple more cords onto the truck without using a trailer.

The traditional bed mounted jib cranes might not be the best design for this, but I'm still hashing the concept out in my head.

 

[Naterik]

You could always take an M923 remove the spare tire rack, move the exhaust stack to the side. Slide the bed up and mount a knuckle boom directly to the truck frame left behind the bed. That would be your strongest option.

 

[jesusgatos]

You could always take an M923 remove the spare tire rack, move the exhaust stack to the side. Slide the bed up and mount a knuckle boom directly to the truck frame left behind the bed. That would be your strongest option.

Or shorten the bed by a couple feet, or use an M35 bed. But that's what I'm leaning towards. Mounting a knuckleboom right to the frame behind the cab.

 

[Jim Timber]

If I put it behind the cab, then I'd have a long reach to get behind the truck. If I mount it to the rear, I can reach further back with a much shorter jib.

http://cranes.e-rackonline.com/truck-mounted-jib-cranes/#gsc.tab=0

 

[jesusgatos]

Oh, gotcha. If you're thinking along those lines, might want to take a look at this?

 

[Jim Timber]

I've wondered about an arch being able to lift logs up from the ground to over the bed without articulation outside pivoting the bow fore/aft like they do for some of the conex container movers and LP tank trucks. Unfortunately, I can't find any pics of that design. I don't have a forktruck or even a skidsteer right now, so I'm going to need a way to make due without one until the funds for something like that can be had. The plan will be scrapped if building something comes out to what it'd cost in payments for such a machine for a year (or even 6 months).

Something like this, only I'd make it myself is what I have in mind for delivering the firewood:
http://www.imt.com/en-US/telescopic-crane-3203i.html