The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts remounting my dump bed. need advice

The standard practice has always been to use wood strips between the body longsill and the frame. The are sometimes supplied by the body manufacturer and sometimes furnished by the body installer, which has become the norm in the last several years. I've used yellow pine that was only painted and oak that had no paint and various other species. It was used originally to make clearance for the rivets on top of the frame rails. Just place the wood strip on the frame, bang with a hammer, remove and drill 1" shallow holes where the indentations were made on the wood and then screw down to the frame in the case of a conversion hoist installation or simply place under the body to be secured by the body U-bolts.

The steel strips can only be secured by welding to the bottom of the longsills on a dump body or platform. NEVER weld them to the truck frame. That is begging for trouble. The big problem with steel riser blocks on a dump body is that the bodies tend to move around (side to side) and the blocks wear into the frame flange. That is why the very best method for installing a dump body is to use hard industrial rubber that is bonded to 1/8"x 3" steel strips which can be welded to the rear hinge top and the hoist mounting cradle. The middle is then secured bu steel strapping in a couple of places. This lasts and lasts and has the added benefit of eliminating a lot of the noise associated with empty dumps running down the road and banging around. The fact that dump bodies are so regional in design and manufacturer accounts for the great many variations one see's. Platform bodies are pretty much mounted onto wood (oak) 1x3's around the country. Your idea of using pressure treated pine Zeb is OK except that the copper used in the treatment of pine plays hell with steel so it is definately a NO-NO unless you have some old Penta treated boards. Thats why one must use double coated galvanized nails or screws with the new "treated" lumber. It will eat up a regular screw/nail in a year or two. Paint is still your best bet on pine or oak too for that matter.

Hope this info clarifys how a body is to be properly installed. NO welding...NO copper treated lumber.