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Picked up our 2015 2500 Crewcab 4x4 BigHorn shortbox (went with the 6.4 Hemi) last week, and yep it's not gonna play well with the wife's horse trailer. We'd looked at several and knew the too tall issue would be a challange. After much thought and dis-cussing we've decided a flatbed is the best solution. For one thing she's all of 5'3 and top of the tailgate is 5' high, with the flatbed she can reach items in the bed easily, no need to tow with the trailer nose sky-high and no crunched bed sides. Considered raising the trailer but then loading some horses becomes an issue.
With all the above said, tomorrow I'll be pulling the factory bed/bumper for resale to hopefully offset some of the cost and a CM model SS plain Jane flatbed will be installed this Wednesday.
Anyone have any advise on the flatbed installation or my pulling the factory bed/bumper/receiver hitch (by myself, SWMBO will be in the shop). My plan is to hook my engine pulling porta-crane to 4 ropes going to the 4 tie downs in the bed, remove bolts, spare tire and wench, fuel fill port, wires....lift and drive out from under the bed.
The farm/ranch trailer dealer that's doing the installation does this everyday and has a nice shop and appears to be topnotch, at my request they're not going to weld the bed on but will use a bolt on ($100) kit.
The existing bed is not that heavy sounds like you got it covered.
The flat bed needs bolted on not welded. Welding to the frame is a no no and will void your warranty.
Are you running leds in the new bed? be sure to use load resistors if you do.
Make sure all lights are tied back into their respective harnesses. do not use a common ground on them.
While the bed is off I would tie a modulite into the towing harness.
Here is my bed (click on the small pic in post 22 for a slide show of the build) I highly recommend J-boxs for the wiring tap and an acces hatch over the fuel tank :
Colo River Ram, thanks for the info. I've spent the last 4 years in the Bakken and your setup would definitely be at the head-of-the pack when it comes to good looking/designed/functional patch rigs. Well done Sir!
On my little project, Gotta love it when a plan....almost comes together. Had a date with the trailer store/bed dealer for Wednesday morning. We drive the 100 miles to the dealer, leave the truck at 8:00 am, wife hops in the V8 Miata and we head out to enjoy the twisty two lane roads in NW Arkansas and find some good small town food. Our plan was to work in a little quality time and pick the truck up Wednesday afternoon and head home. What was I thinking.....we got a call while ordering lunch (at the Wiederkehr Winery Restaurant in Altus Ar.) at 11:30, they discover the bed we were buying would "only" work if an extra 3" spacer was used to clear the factory 5th wheel/goose neck prep package frame crossmember. This makes the bed set 10" above the frame and have a total height at the rear of 48". What???? My instructions were hold up, stop. A couple hours later I'm back at the shop picking up the truck while they search for a bed that will fit.
Come to find out I was getting an old inventory bed that isn't designed for the 2015 trucks...it'll be a couple weeks before a new bed can be delivered, to add insult to injury I specifically told em not to cut off any wiring plugs, just splice into the harness since I may want to install the stock bed if we sell the truck. Well, they were mostly all gone, the tech finally found a handful that may or may not be all. Been haying today and haven't had time to check.
The only upside is I can buy the bed they couldn't make work, notch to clear the interference and install myself. Think that's the plan, save a $1,000 and have it like I want. Looks like I have next weeks project.
"How does that saying go about if you want it done right? "
Sad but true. On the up-fitters guide my principal laptop won't open it, hyperlinks don't work. I'll try my backup computer soon.
On the Bakken, when I finished my last project (pipeline PM) at Christmas last year I decided to call it a good run and retire at 63. I still have friends/contacts I visit with and the majors are still drilling in the sweet spots, primarily McKenzie County. McKenzie County and Watford City are the heart of the play. Williams Co. to the north and Dunn Co to the south are still active but the further away from Watford City, the less drilling.
One old bud is PM on a project near Ray ND and XTO is still going great guns (Williams Co), but that's Exxons money and they've got a lot of it.
Good Luck and thanks for the advise. Now gotta get to the hay field!
Well, to put the period on the sentence....it's done. Only a day and a half of part timing it and a bit over a 100 inches of weld and we have mounted flat bed. Pulled the trailer last weekend and it's definitely gonna be worth the aggravation. Big bonus, the truck rides much better empty, not to mention the 7'x7' bed that's so much more user friendly than the factory unit!
I run a 130 mother cow ranch that my wife and I own with my parents. We hay about 100 acres too and I would never own a pickup with out a flat bed, to work out of there a dream and nothing slides to the front you can't reach. My wife's white truck is getting a hauler bed this spring as our trailers to close for comfort. Nice looking truck sir!
Originally Posted by moparguy
And the reason we added a flatbed. So far it's the best change I've made on any truck we've owned and that's a lot of trucks and a lot of upgrades!
Bringing this post back to life to help another member out. He asked how we modified the earlier style bed to fit on the 2015 truck. Photo's below.
Going with the old saw that a picture is worth a thousand words I'll let them do the talking. One bit of advise, don't cut out too much to clear the factory trailer hitch bits. I did and had to weld in additional metal that's visible in the last image.
Also, it'd have been a very simple thing to cut and weld with the bed sitting on the truck frame, sorta build all the brackets in place. However out of concern for stray voltage damage to vital components, we set and removed the flatbed many times with all welding performed away from the truck.
07-07-2015, 08:05 AM
