Re: Truck bed skewers? How to install or where to?

[WBtobal]

In article >,
(R15757) writes:

>My friend just did this and it works freakin great: get a sturdy 2 X 8 board
>that is a few inches shorter than the truck bed is wide, then bolt two
>bike-tights into it. The hardware should be fairly far apart, and they should
>be parallel to the length of the board, but not lined up with each other.
>That's it. The board does not have to be attached to or wedged into the
>truck.
>It's helpful to keep it movable if you need to fill the truck with
>refrigerators, etc. On the other hand, in a wreck the unattached board and
>bikes may fly right out, and the board may get stolen. Trade-offs.
>
>Leave the board near the back of the truck by the tailgate. Then you just
>back
>the bike in and clamp it down. Don't even have to climb into the truck bed to
>do it.
>
>Robert

What Robert said.....plus a couple more thoughts. I used a sheet of
3/4" plywood, approximately 18" X 44"....use round headed stove bolts
coming up from the bottom (won't scratch the pick up bed)...and was
able to (measure carefully) mount 3 Bike Tights to carry 3 bikes easily.

The bikes are secure and won't slide around...especially if you loop a
long bungee cord from one of the corner bed tie-downs, through a rear
tire (loop it) then through the next tire, etc., and to the opposite side
bed tie-down.

Quick, easy, secure, and effective.

Regards,
Bill


Place the board in the cab of the truck while riding, and it won't get
"liberated".

Regards,
Bill

[Pete]

"Preston Crawford" > wrote in message
...
> Also, a little more detail. The other reason for the question is that
we're
> planning on doing a spray-in bedliner. So I guess we need to know before
> doing that what's the best way to go. One suggestion I've read via Google
is
> to use the bolt holes meant for a utility box to attack pieces of wood to
> which you can then attach the skewers. This might change how we approach
the
> bedliner. So that's why we need to get this figured out soon.
>
> Preston

What I did was build a ladder type rack thing, that has verticle 2x6's to
hold the back wheels. Slots into the slots on the plastic bedliner.
It also holds the big hard plastic locking box from *Mart.

Scrap 2x4 & 2x6 was basically zero $$. No skewers, no removing the wheels.

Which sprayin liner are you going with? I've seen good reports from
http://www.combatcoatings.com/, as well as Rhino liners.

If nothing else....bolt some standoff front axles to the top of the bed
front.
Personally....a truck and having to remove wheels to transport bikes is a
serious disconnect..

Pete

[Rick Onanian]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:15:39 GMT, Pete > wrote:
> Personally....a truck and having to remove wheels to transport bikes is a
> serious disconnect..

Hell, I thought I was crazy for having that same thought.

Why buy a truck if you're going to have to still disassemble
your bike to drive it somewhere?

Me, I have TracRacs, and I do a few different things:

1. I stand the bike sideways, so each wheel touches one side
of the bed. I've got the optional cargo fence, which wedges
the wheels right against the front of the wheelwells of the
truck; the bike pretty much stands on it's own at that point.
I then add a single strap from the stem to one of the racks.
I'll take a photo if anybody cares.

2. I stand the bike in line with the truck, lean the saddle
against the rear rack, and strap the saddle to the rack. This
keeps the bike _very_ secure, and it doesn't scratch the paint.

3. No racks required: Stand the bike up, and strap from top tube
to each side of the bed [most beds have some sort of hook for
straps].

4. No racks required, easier and quicker, but may scratch the
seatstays and fork: Stand bike near side, lean it against side,
and run a strap from front of bed to back of bed along side to
keep bike in place. This is very quick and avoids damaging the
bar tape the way that just throwing the bike in does.

For my mountain bike, I just lay the damn thing in. It spends
enough time scraping trees and rocks, what difference will a
plastic bedliner do...
> Pete
--
Rick Onanian

[Stephen Harding]

Preston Crawford wrote:

> Well, the thing is, I don't want to fill the bed up necessarily with much of
> a framework to hold the bikes. Mainly because we'll be using the truck for
> other things, I'm sure. So the reason the skewers seem to make sense to me
> is because it isn't THAT much of a hassle to remove the wheels and then you
> only have a small footprint that's affected by the change.

My brother has a pair of skewer mounts on the top rail of the truck bed. I
think it is a type that has a bolt to clamp it to the rail, so it can be
removed when not needed.

The bikes go in the bed sideways and mountain bikes fit with room to spare.
His setup works very well, but he's got a full sized F-150, and I'm not
certain your Ranger has enough bed width for a sideways installation.

My truck has a cap so I just throw bikes in with no attachment. Can get
a bit messy untangling them if there's more than three though.

Preston with a pickup truck??!!! You surprise me!


SMH

[Pete]

"Rick Onanian" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:15:39 GMT, Pete > wrote:
> > Personally....a truck and having to remove wheels to transport bikes is
a
> > serious disconnect..
>
> Hell, I thought I was crazy for having that same thought.

Before I built the rack thingy, I'd just lean it against the side of the bed
and bungee it to the side.
Or, crosswise right behind the cab.

Pete

[[email protected]]

Preston Crawford > wrote:
> My wife and I traded purchased a ligh pickup this weekend. A Ranger. My wife
> is going nuts, doing long bike rides and triathalons and we figured this
> would fit us well as a way to easily get the bikes to and from where she
> needs to go. However, what I can't figure out is what is the best way to put
> in skewers to hold the bikes. Some people apparantly wedge in a 2 x 4 and
> attach the skewers to that. Some people attach the skewers directly to the
> bed. Anyone have any knowledge of this and have an opinion?

> Preston

If you are going to attach the skewers directly to the truck bed, it would
be best to wait until the liner is sprayed on. Otherwise moisture will
eventually seep underneath the skewer, weaken the paint and cause rust. A
quick and dirty approach to mounting the skewers be using some #12 sheet
metal screws and drilling them directly into the truck body. *Check to
make sure the FUEL TANK is not underneath your mounting point.* If the
truck is a beater you don't have to care about rust forming where you shot
the screws. If you care, use silicone caulk as necessary on the topside
and bottomside of where you shot the screws to keep it watertight. Using
bolts and washersto secure the skewers to the truck bed would be more
professional, but its more work to install and considerably harder to
remove. If you want to keep the truck pristine and hole free, use the 2x4
method.

Ironically the number one place, I've seen trucks rust out is not the bed
or underbody area, but underneath the driver's floormat, especially in
GM trucks with poly floormats. My only experience with this has been with
police vehicles in the rust belt, so your milage may vary.

--
---
Eric Yagerlener

[Preston Crawford]

"Pete" > wrote in message
...
> Before I built the rack thingy, I'd just lean it against the side of the
bed
> and bungee it to the side.
> Or, crosswise right behind the cab.

Oh, believe me, we had this thought too. That's why I'm asking now. Because
even though my wife has a couple races in the next few weeks, we probably
won't do the rack for at least a month. I just needed to know soon what my
options were, so I knew whether I should hold off on the spray-in bedliner
or not. Now that I know that there are solutions that work AFTER the
bedliner is in place we'll probably just lay the bike in the back until we
figure out something we like.

Preston

[Eric Murray]

In article >,
Preston Crawford > wrote:
>My wife and I traded purchased a ligh pickup this weekend. A Ranger. My wife
>is going nuts, doing long bike rides and triathalons and we figured this
>would fit us well as a way to easily get the bikes to and from where she
>needs to go. However, what I can't figure out is what is the best way to put
>in skewers to hold the bikes. Some people apparantly wedge in a 2 x 4 and
>attach the skewers to that. Some people attach the skewers directly to the
>bed. Anyone have any knowledge of this and have an opinion?

I used to have a Ranger.

I bought a couple truck bed skewer mounts from REI (they
were on sale) and bolted them to a 2x4 that I cut to the
right length to nestle into the 2x4 pockets in the plastic bedliner.

I then bolted a turnbuckle to the 2x4 in the right position to
hook up to an eye-bolt in the bed. I put the eye bolt in
the very front center of the bed floor. It was originally there
for a motorcycle tie down. To fit it I drilled a hole
in the bed and liner and a foot long piece of 1" square tubing which
was bolted on underneath as a brace.... 500 lb motorcycles
exert a lot of force. If you look underneath you can see
where it is safe to drill without hitting the fuel tank.

The 2x4 bicycle rack thing worked really well. It was removeable
(so I could load motorcycles) with a few turns of the turnbuckle
yet stable.

Eric

[Andy]

"Preston Crawford" > wrote in message >...
> My wife and I traded purchased a ligh pickup this weekend. A Ranger. My wife
> is going nuts, doing long bike rides and triathalons and we figured this
> would fit us well as a way to easily get the bikes to and from where she
> needs to go. However, what I can't figure out is what is the best way to put
> in skewers to hold the bikes. Some people apparantly wedge in a 2 x 4 and
> attach the skewers to that. Some people attach the skewers directly to the
> bed. Anyone have any knowledge of this and have an opinion?
>
> Preston


Preston

Here is what you need. It's made by Swagman and it's a skewer
clamping system that mounts to the bed of your truck. I know of many
people that use it because it's small, it's cheap and it works. The
web site is www.swagman.net but here is the direct link to the
part(the claw).

http://www.swagman.net/detaila.php?id=64700

Just copy and paste that link to your Address bar and you can see the
item I am talking about.

Hope that helps.

Andy

[Bret]

I have a fiberglass lid on my truck bed as well. I went to a
trailer-hitch-mounted rack. Upside? No removing bike wheels. Downside?
It makes your truck another couple of feet longer (I can't fit my truck in
the garage any more).

[Rick Onanian]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 18:54:47 GMT, Bret > wrote:
> I have a fiberglass lid on my truck bed as well. I went to a
> trailer-hitch-mounted rack. Upside? No removing bike wheels. Downside?
> It makes your truck another couple of feet longer (I can't fit my truck
> in the garage any more).

....and it requires you to trust that your bike will stay
strapped to it. When I had a trunk rack on my car, I was
so paranoid that I spent 15 minutes securing my bike any
time I loaded it -- strap it, tie it, remove speedometer
and other loose items...

--
Rick Onanian

[Bret]

I bought a rack that has an "antisway" system, which
keeps the bikes fairly level. And there are a couple
of straps that hold the bike fairly snugly. I do take
the extra 30 seconds though to strap an extra bungy
or two over the top of the bike(s) to make sure there's
a little extra down force. The rack is mounted
very sturdily to the class-3 hitch of the truck. I did
use a trunk rack a couple of times on a car and I
always felt like it was going to fly off at any moment.

"Rick Onanian" > wrote in message
...

> ...and it requires you to trust that your bike will stay
> strapped to it. When I had a trunk rack on my car, I was
> so paranoid that I spent 15 minutes securing my bike any
> time I loaded it -- strap it, tie it, remove speedometer
> and other loose items...
>
> --
> Rick Onanian