Bolting a piece of plywood on the floor of the bed w/ longer bed bolts (Bad idea?)

Using the OEM bolt locations, I want to bolt a piece of 4x8 1/2 plywood on my Tundra bed. I do a lot of wheelings and I don't want the plywood lifting into the air. I plan to secure my packout plates to the plywood versus drilling holes into the bed. Will it be a bad idea to have the plywood bolted with the bed and frame? Or anyone have a better idea of securing the packout plates to the bed?

Does anyone know where I can get longer bolts? Probably 3/4 inch longer than OEM.

Pic for attention

 

I would use pressure treated unless you have a bed cover. For bolts, most likely your local hardware and fastener supplier should have something.

 

Here's a few problems I see. There will be a dead space between the bottom of the plywood and the bed surface where the existing bolts are. This will need to filled with fender washers? Also the plywood is soft and getting the bolts tight enough to hold the bed down would likely cause the bolts to be drawn down into the plywood and make the sheet uneven.

My solution would be to use a ferrule to pass the compression of the bolt head directly to the bed surface to hold the bed to the frame with the designed pressure.
If this doesn't make sense I'll elaborate. But, yes. Doable. As far as the bolts, they shouldn't be hard to source. McMaster Carr comes to mind.

 

You brought up many good points I never thought of. I'm glad I asked here before just doing it.

 

If you are only trying to hold the plywood down to prevent loss or slipping you probably only need to use four of the bed bolts.

 

Copy. I was planning on using the front and middle ones. The bolts by the tail gate have bed stiffeners on them, so I don't plan on using it.

 

Plenty of youtube for ideas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=WzsMIi8Iiuw

 

@Terndrerrr

 

I saw this video already. Plan on doing something similar. The problem with his setup is that it is not secure to the truck itself. He uses the weight of the build to hold it down. That will be a problem for me as being airborne with my truck is a real possibility.

 

I did this (with less coverage) and used the OEM bolts.

5/8” plywood. Only 1/8” difference between this and 3/4”.
Fridge slide mount without drilling any extra holes in the bed.



I would not trust this if you’re set up for high speed desert running. But I did do a bunch of western CO wheeling and Imogene Pass with this setup.

 

why not set up something on the sides of the bed instead of the bottom? i'm thinking something like molle panels.

 

I'm going to have a bed cover that is taking the bed rails. Also the molle panels might not be strong enough to handle the vertical weight of all my gears in the packout boxes

 

High-speed desert is exactly what I am building for. I have a Land Cruiser for the slower stuff. I just got done with Black Bear, Imogene, Engineer, and Ophir last week.

 

Gotcha. There are quite a few of us Tundra and LC/LX owners on the forum.

You must be going LT in the Tundra then?

I wouldn’t depend on any plywood to hold things down or mount things to in that case. I would be using heavy duty ratchet straps with tie down points and cages bolted to the bed like @reywcms. Search his posts. Lots of bed shots.

 

See post # 297 here

 

I dabble in the high speed dirt stuff

 

Add to the fact that water will get under there and stay for long periods of time. Might lead wood rotting, and possibly even speeding up the rust process in the bed???

 

You just have to park on a slope for water to drain to either end of the bed. I have a bedrug and water gets under there but it's not a big deal.

 

Yea I wouldn’t go the wood plywood route for many reasons one like mentioned above the tension for the bed bolts etc. I’d use the bed bolts and add tie downs. This has proven to work super well for me and others. For a few other items I’ve added nutserts or bolted through the bed. But not a big deal for me to do that. Especially since my shocks have a hole through that bed etc lol

 

Thanks for the inspiration. Seems like I'll probably have to go your route since it's proven to work.