homade deck question

[snow_god]

Im building a homade steel deck. im starting with a 8'x8' 2" tube frame i found laying behind my house. when i look at all the other decks they have a frame underneath of them so the deck sits on the bed of the truck. My thought was to weld a 1" angle around the bottom side of the deck at the dememsions of the truck bed and just have the deck itself sit on the top of the box rails. Any pros or cons to this?

 

[Coldfinger]

Marathon has an aluminum deck that sits on top of the bed rails and they offer 4 support legs which can be bolted on which sit just inside the rails and go to the floor. Looks great to me. I'm sure they could answer the following:

My concerns would be,
1 - bed rail flex when going over uneven terrain and how that would affect the deck

2 - bed rail wear if you don't have a line-X coating or something

True or not, I've seen the youtube video of truck frame flex and how it crinkles the tailgate of the ford so regardless of brand I have to think there is bedrail flex in all makes.

 

[snow_god]

So with what ur saying it can b put on the rails but pry not the best way to go about it. When building legs/stand under it how much room should a guy have between the rails and the deck?

 

[obch0501]

I wouldn't build it that way. Definantly add the frame so it sits just above your bed rails. I have seen a superduty that had to use a heavy tie down to pull the sides of the truck box together to close the tailgate. I built a deck this summer and 1"x2" square tubing is plenty for making a frame to sit in the box. I built my entire deck out of 1"x2" i beleive it was 16 ga. Shouldn't cost much to add and I would hate to wreck a truck box when it could have been prevented for under $100.

 

[zxsummitrider01]

having a frame under your deck also makes a for a place to be able to slide your ramp in so that you can have a ramp longer than the length of your bed to ease your loading angle