The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Creative way to add weight

Still messing with the new to me '41 pickup. Ran a errand yesterday and ended up with 200 lbs. in the bed and boy, did it ride better. Other than sand in some feed sacks, ( which I have done), I am looking for an easy way to add weight that doesn't damage the bed and look like old feed sacks. I have tried searching the forum.

Slide two or three 3" diameter solid steel round bars into the C channel of the frame rails under the bed, long enough to stretch from one side to the other. Be sure to bracket them in well so they don't come loose in case of a panic stop or a fender bender. I did something similar with my son's 72 Dodge pickup several years ago with a piece of 3" channel iron and two cast steel track idler rollers from a D-6 Cat dozer bolted to it. They weighed almost 100 lbs. apiece.
Jerry

You said creative. I use extra poundage for winter weight to help when there's ice and snow.

The 1st shows flat rocks from a favorite fishing spot on the Clark Fork River. I pick up a few every time fish there. About 20 times (or more) that number are landscaping our cabin.

The 2nd shows another hobby, old Merc outboards.

Whatever you choose to carry in/on the bed please secure it. In my LE career I worked many fatal accidents where the load came through the back window and took the driver/passengers head off. Not pretty.

Why not just lower the tire pressure? That's what I used to do with my 3/4 ton when it was empty.

Maybe you can add a big fat heavy bumper of sorts. The big slab style dumptruck type with a built in hitch and D rings should add a few lbs

Get some railroad rail.the light stuff is about 100 lbs / ft.

Maybe you could luck up on a thick steel plate like they use to cover holes in the road during repair work. Maybe a road construction company or the city might have a small piece or some scrap they would sell you. Lay it in the bed and leave it.

You meant BOLT it in the bed. A minor fenderbender could turn it into a guillotine if not secured.

We had a 53 3100 with a V8 that could PULL anything but couldn't STOP anything. We got a side mount spare tire set up and then poured a concrete spare tire replica to mount in the under bed spare rack. With the weight way at the rear it gave great traction and a good ride and didn't take up any space.

Evan, adding that weight in the rear makes for a great ride but doesn't improve anything regarding stopping does it?

Better traction for the rear wheels DEFINITELY helps the stopping ability, especially since the rear brakes are designed to stop a truck with a full load (or an overload) in the bed.
Jerry

How's the ride with the concrete spare mounted, like the flint stone mobile?

Until the momentum rolls the weight forward, then all bets are off. Adding more weight means more weight to stop, I'd like to see the empirical data on the addition of weight versus stopping data and find out when this function would reverse itself.

My 52 1 ton has a bed floor of diamond tread plate steel, installed long before my time with the truck.
If it's 1/4" thick that's about 400 lb in a 9' bed. Or 300lb if 3/16" thick.
Hardly takes up any space for being so heavy.

(HRL) "Better traction for the rear wheels DEFINITELY helps the stopping ability, especially since the rear brakes are designed to stop a truck with a full load (or an overload) in the bed."
While there is an upper limit of total weight which can be added to a vehicle before momentum exceeds the stopping ability of stock brake design, if the weight is added anywhere behind the rear axle, tire slippage on the pavement will be decreased. Its all about increasing downward force, resulting in increased friction.
That is how the sleds work in tractor pulls. As the sled is pulled down the track, the weights are mechanically moved forward, imparting increased downward force directly over the skid plate, thus increasing friction between the bottom of the sled and the ground.

For our application, it would be best to place the weight as close to the rear bumper as possible. This will allow the least amount of weight needed to gain friction where the tires meet the road. Keeping the amount of weight added to the truck at a minimum will address the issue which sstock has illustrated as a real problem if too much weight is added (if I am reading him correctly).
Carl

Spare tire carrier in the rear.

Heavy steel bed floor liner.

Bracket a piece of 4" diameter steel water pipe securely between the frame rails as close to the rear bumper as possible. Drill a few holes in the top. Pour it full of melted lead wheel weights. That will be about 500 Lbs. worth. Instant traction and improved braking ability, as well as a softer ride.
Jerry

How about filling the pipe with fine lead shot and add a cable operated dump valve so you can lose some weight quick like once the race gets started... I mean for when you need to reduce weight so you can haul heavy freight?

I know a guy that built bumpers out of 6" Steel Pipe. He bounced off a telephone pole one night, it didn't hurt the bumper at all, but it tore the heck out of the side of the truck. You could also thread caps on to the pipe an fill it with more heavy stuff. that way if you need to reduce weight for any reason, just open it up and pull it out.

Sounds like a Dale Earnhardt Sr. trick- - - - -He also was suspected of using a long, skinny nitrous oxide cylinder that would fit inside a piece of roll bar tubing, plumbed to the engine for a last-lap surge of passing power.
Jerry

I would be careful adding weight behind the back axle. Have you ever towed a trailer or seen a trailer with too much tongue weight? It uses the back axle as a fulcrum and takes weight off the front tires. This leaves you in a situation when you do a hard brake, the front tires lock up and slide because they have no weight.
Just my 2 cents, but if I were to add weight, I would place it over, or slightly in front of the rear axle.

Jon

Our trailers are all car trailers so the movable weight (the car) can be shifted to add or subtract weight from the front axle. A welder friend has a Ford diesel with a large diameter heavy wall pipe that angles back on both ends that is an air tank. Used it numerous times when we had the tractor pull track and a bunch of equipment with tires that always needed a shot of air. I guess that since the truck is a 4wd it also helped plant the front tires.

Ah yes, good point Jon, but you can get by with less weight the further away you place the weight behind the axle. Weight all the way back takes advantage of leverage, so you will not need as much weight to apply the same amount of force on the rear axle as you would if the weight was put over the axle.
It is a balancing act, requiring trial and error to get the weight right, so as to not pull the front tires off the ground..

When I got my 1-ton, like Grigg's, it had a 1/4 inch steel plate in the 9' bed. It road much softer than after I took it out. Or rather I and three friends took it out. When I was hauling gravel I didn't need the ballast. But now, loaded evenly, the front tires lock up in the snow long before the rears do.This is not good. Something to think about when adding a load just on the rear axle.

Here's a couple of things that come to mind;
Get a couple of 6 volt tractor batteries, and mount them at the front of the bed -- 1 on either side. They can be as large as 2 feet across. Run the cables in series to obtain 12 volts, and remove your regular battery.
Fill the doors with concrete. This works especially well if you're figure eight racing. You'll never need to give a second thought to crossing the intersection -- but others will.
Lastly, you could obtain some pig iron (same stuff railroad tracks are made of). In fact, at least on the old (early to mid sixties) Ford Falcon vans, they put a 2, and a half by three foot by about three inch thick slab above the rear gas tank strapped between the frame rails. Careful removing it while under there, as it weighs about 2 times as much as you'll think it does. This may well be the the best choice, as it'd be a really "tidy" arrangement, and the "slabs" are made to order (already).

HTH

Chris

My 2 pictures way up in this thread have loose weight in the bed which some warned about. I really appreciate the concern.

The type of head on collision that would bring this weight from the bed through the green box and into me in the cab would surely drive the steering wheel into my chops first. It would be a closed-casket funeral for sure.

(Sometimes, I use firewood for some winter weight.)