[AT] Big Truck Pickups

[szabelski at wildblue.net]

The aluminum bed commercial was a Chevy Silverado commercial. The aluminum bed idea is unfortunately an idea from some of engineers who used to work for General Dynamics when I was a Senior Engineering Specialist.  We use aluminum in military vehicles for weight reduction, but it’s nothing you can get for commercial purposes. The stuff we use can’t be cut, drilled, or tapped with standard tools. Those engineers hadn’t been with GD long enough to learn this, so when they went to work for Ford and proposed using standard tempered aluminum for weight savings and mileage improvement, they didn’t do Ford any favors.

----- Original Message -----
From: James Peck <jamesgpeck at hotmail.com>
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 10:29:25 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: [AT] Big Truck Pickups

James AT List Member and advocate of upgradeable tractor vocational training (jamesgpeck at hotmail.com); I have rented a Home Depot flatbed pickup twice to carry items that would not have fit in a pickup box. I am very impressed with them. The flat beds are probably much more puncture proof than those aluminum ford pickup boxes. There used to be a commercial of someone dropping a tool box into a ford pickup bed and tearing a hole in the bed.

https://www.homedepot.com/c/Truck_Rental

You could probably move a tractor with a rental truck and trailer. 

 I have seen 1/2 ton pickup beds where the stamped floor rails are scalloped between the laterals due to loads carried. My question is whether the F450 Ford or aftermarket F650 have bed floors that will carry the rated load as well as a wood floor would. The hot rudders have embraced wood pickup bed floors for esthetic reasons. They likely are the higher capacity option.

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