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Modular Smart Car Beds


bmzero

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One question I do have for the group though, would you go ahead and add two additional receivers on each side for a more stable platform if someone wanted to build a bicycle rack or small carrier platform?

 

From looking at the photos, that may be more trouble than it's worth. You would probably want to run the driver's side receiver on the outside of the exhaust tip, and then place the passenger side to match. That's going to be a lot of receivers below the bumper of the car.

 

Another option would be to build your own receiver tube. The reason I built the tubes (cut all four sides) on the truck bed was so I could control the clearance between the receiver and the tube. Most receiver tubes are significantly larger inside diameter than they need to be so they can accommodate all sorts of tube variances and coatings. If you build all four sides, you can have a much tighter fit and provide much better support for your rack/hitch. It's definitely more trouble, but worth it in some uses.

 

Fabricating the tubes will also let you use square tubing for your inserts. The sharp angles on square tubes provides a good bit more surface area to aid in preventing twist of the tube, over traditional rounded corner square tubing, and of course, rounded corner tubing will still slide in as well.

"Willy Mammoth" - Volvo 730, Sold

Heartland Cyclone 4000 Toy Hauler
T-Minus 26 years and counting to being a full timer.

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Brit, thought about having too many but for the two outside tubes, I was planning on putting them on top of the cross bar between the end of the muffler and the exhaust tip on the drivers side and at the end of the muffler on the passenger side. One advantage to that is that I could use flat bars vertical and horizontal with the receiver tube welded to the inside corners to reinforce that location and eliminate a 90 degree bend in the bar. Let me get some things squared away here at work and I will mark up a couple of pics to show you what I was thinking about.

2017 Kenworth T680
2015 DRV 38RSSA Elite Suites
2016 Smart Prime

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Regarding masking the holes, we commonly used rubber plugs to mask holes for paint and plating. They come on all kind of sizes, ask the place that did your zinc, most plating shops will have them or at least know where to get them. The look like test tube stoppers, tapered rubber plugs.

 

Steve

2005 Peterbilt 387-112 Baby Cat 9 speed U-shift

1996/2016 remod Teton Royal Atlanta

1996 Kentucky 48 single drop stacker garage project

 catdiesellogo.jpg.e96e571c41096ef39b447f78b9c2027c.jpg Pulls like a train, sounds like a plane....faster than a Cheetah sniffin cocaine.   

 

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Regarding masking the holes, we commonly used rubber plugs to mask holes for paint and plating. They come on all kind of sizes, ask the place that did your zinc, most plating shops will have them or at least know where to get them. The look like test tube stoppers, tapered rubber plugs.

 

Steve

 

The problem with the plugs is that the LineX material will build up around them. It gets applied at almost 1/8" thickness, so in the crevices near the plugs, it will create a beveled corner (beveled upward) when the plugs are removed. I'm working through a few options, but none of them are easy and all are time consuming.

"Willy Mammoth" - Volvo 730, Sold

Heartland Cyclone 4000 Toy Hauler
T-Minus 26 years and counting to being a full timer.

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The problem with the plugs is that the LineX material will build up around them. It gets applied at almost 1/8" thickness, so in the crevices near the plugs, it will create a beveled corner (beveled upward) when the plugs are removed. I'm working through a few options, but none of them are easy and all are time consuming.

I reread the part about the oval relief being the mask area. Instead of a metal plug use a plastic or rubber filler that will not bond to line-X. You can make a mold and roll your own, use UHMW as the mold block, route the shape and use silicone to make the masks.

 

Steve

2005 Peterbilt 387-112 Baby Cat 9 speed U-shift

1996/2016 remod Teton Royal Atlanta

1996 Kentucky 48 single drop stacker garage project

 catdiesellogo.jpg.e96e571c41096ef39b447f78b9c2027c.jpg Pulls like a train, sounds like a plane....faster than a Cheetah sniffin cocaine.   

 

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The thing that's making this tough is the slotted shape of the hole.

 

I do like the idea of a thin rubber plug, though. The plates are 1/8" thick. I could build a 1/8" thick rubber plug that would fill the gap, LineX over the top of that. Then, I could build a tool that would cut (slotted shape, sharp edges) out the LineX material in the same slot shape. The rubber plug would allow the "punch" to compress the LineX material until the edges of the punch cut through the layer of LineX.

 

The tricky part of that approach would be lining up the punch. I think it will work, though.

"Willy Mammoth" - Volvo 730, Sold

Heartland Cyclone 4000 Toy Hauler
T-Minus 26 years and counting to being a full timer.

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