It sounds like my work pickup will be getting a gooseneck hitch soon. What does everyone use for tool storage in this case? I currently have a crossover toolbox at the front of the bed with a slip tank in front of it and a set of Decked drawers on the bed floor. I'll be able to keep the slip tank and crossover box I think but the drawers will have to go. The crossover box currently holds grease, marking paint, shop towels, cleaning supplies, toolboxes with wrenches/sockets, and various chokers and slings. The drawers hold cordless power tools in one and tripods, grade rods and surveying supplies in the other. I'm needing something that'll store multiple GPS/UTS/Laser tripods, rover poles, and grade rods out of the weather and more importantly out of sight. Most of the tripods and grade rods need around 5' of length. The pickup is a 2021 Chevy 2500 long bed. Any ideas will help.
The dirt contractors here that want to pull a flatbed, have gone to this style of flatbed body. they are expensive, and I don't know if they make a narrow one for a 2500. The boxes are short enough to clear the gooseneck, and still have quite a bit of storage. I've seen the welder guys recess side boxes in the deck of a flatbed. Down each side.
A bed like the one pictured above can run you $12,000 or more. The good thing is you can usually keep it for longer than you keep your truck and move it to your next truck. Cab and chassis trucks are all typically standard between the big 3 automakers. Bed delete trucks usually are all over the place on cab to axle measurements.
I'd love to have something like pictured above or even just a flatbed but that won't be happening. Whatever I get will have to work with the factory long bed.
Do you use your backseat to haul people? There are all sorts of rear seat storage options. Looking at a new truck for my guys and we're going with a CM truck bed like the one pictured above. Need the storage for all the things you listed and occasionally pull a goose neck. These bodies are expensive. The one I want is around $15K+.
I do occasionally haul a crew so the rear seat needs to be available. I have a DuHa organizer under the rear seat and typically have the rear seat stacked full of Pelican cases with GPS, UTS and laser equipment. That can all get put in the bed when I need to haul a crew.
Get a plasma cutter and MIG welder and start building. It sounds like you already have toolboxes, just need to remove the bed and make supports to hold them on the sides down low.
I can typically find used plain flatbeds for under $2,000. Big crossover box and the fuel tank ahead of the hitch. Side boxes on each side mounted to the bed, short enough that the neck won't hit the boxes. Which should easily be shorter than standard truck bed sides. Once you work out of a flatbed, you will never work out of a standard truck bed.
Would it be a option to mount some storage on the trailer your now going to be pulling.
One can buy a new CM flatbed rather reasonably. Local Big Tex that sells the CM beds. Trailers for Sale | Big Tex Trailer World www.bigtextrailerworld.com
That's not an option either unfortunately. Everything has to go on or in the pickup.
I thought weatherguard made a drawer unit that went around a gooseneck hitch, but I can't seem to find it. The only other option I can think of would be pork chop boxes along the side of the bed. I used to have one very similar to this that I really liked until I went to a flatbed. Edit - Trying to find the weatherguard box I was thinking of I found a company called truck vault, they have an option for gooseneck hitches, maybe that will work for you
Do you have a link for the box in the photo?
Well look at this - Pickup Solutions | TruckVault truckvault.com Did not know they made a sliding bed drawer system that would still accept a gooseneck.
Not the best pictures of the box but they make high goose neck trailers to clear service boxes. We raised this one ourselves back in 2018. Don't have the pickup any more but the trailer is still around doing work.
I like a good pickup flat bed thread. I hear that our Australian Bros call them “tray backs” down unda. Is there any truth to that?
Makes me sad we are not allowed to have these and that we are forced to drive big American pickup truck.
Guessing it takes a watchful eye pulling that gooseneck not to get into the tool boxes on the bed. You can get something similar in a gasser version which sucks compared to the small diesels they have overseas. BTW - LOVE my 350. . Wouldn't trade it for a toy truck. Steps away before being flamed by our friends from Down Under...
Product categories Pork Chop Boxes thefuelbox.com
Yep, trayback it is. As far as little Ute's go, they have started importing new Ford/Chev/etc pick-ups over the last couple of years. Converted to rhd over here, but full factory warranty etc. I've been told around $140k, and fuel is around $1.80/litre. So a little 4 cyl makes a bit of sense, depending on how much money you have.
I love the small trucks too and they would be more than adequate for my personal needs. In fact I've personally owned 4 over the years. I've always wanted one with a little diesel. It seems that the North American manufacturers, possibly in response to consumers, quit putting the R&D into them in favor of the larger ones. With that said, we routinely haul a large CTL and/or a mini ex, a bed full of tools and supplies, and 4 to 5 men 100-200 miles. I'm not sure how the small tray backs would compare economically in that scenario.
Funny, that's what I said about having a utility body on a pickup! I will never go back to a regular pickup body. But I get it, they don't work with 5th wheels, im just in a spot where if it's bigger than what I should pull on a 7 ton pintle trailer behind my f250 service truck, I just put it on my 20 ton tag behind the tri axle dump, I don't have much use for the in-between and I'm absolutely in love with my toolbox on wheels that is my F250
The fancy tray styles we get over here these days has really only come about the past 15-20 years or so. Since the advent of cheap CNC plasma cutters and cnc sheet metal benders along with easy to use CAD, it has opened a new world to what the smaller welding shop can create and custom work is no big deal. I can never understand why on utility vehicles the well back design is still so relevant these days. They are such a useless design, always have been IMO.
Not at all, I've side hilled through ditches, drove up and over dykes you name it. the hitch is built high enough that it is very mobile. I was planning on employees that don't know what a mirror is or how to use one, so they wouldn't be able to kiss the boxes. Turns out those same employees don't know what a temp gauge means on the service pickup and since the speed limit is 80mph on the interstate that must mean a 1 ton stock pickup HAS to drive 80mph, up McDonald Pass, with 14,000lbs on a trailer, a service box full of tools, in July when it's 98 degrees out. Drove it til the Dmax seized.... But we let it cool off and it started up again, limped it through the rest of the summer with gallons and gallons of water. Then got the heads machined and re-valved, put head studs on it. Ended up selling that pickup to another employee a few years later and he's put another 100,000 miles on it, so I'm impressed with that Dmax block.