dpb wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
nobody wrote:
Hi All,

Picked up a tonneau cover for my Tacoma work truck. Unfortunately, my tool
boxes are a few inches too tall to use an ordinary bedslider. The tonneau
cover will not close.

Have any of you folks built a bed slider where the plywood bed sits very
close to the truck bed? If so, got any tips on the plywood bed/ slider-
roller mechanism?

I would seriously be in your debt. Thx!

Ray

It would depend on your fabrication abilities.

If I wanted to build such a slider I would use
Unistrut/Powerstrut/Superstrut as the slider rails, with the open
channel facing up and probably three rails to limit the plywood span
between rails.

Make roller trucks from two pieces of 2"x2"x1/8" angle paired together
to make a "T" with the top mounted to the ply and the leg sitting in the
strut track. Cross drill and bolt two pears of ball bearings to the leg
of the "T" to act as rollers, sized just under the height from the
bottom of the strut to the bottom of the rolled lip so that the bearings
roll on the bottom of the track with a load on the plywood and if there
is lift from cantilever they roll on the rolled lip of the strut. Cut
the leg of the "T" down as needed to minimize height.
...

I've thought some of this, too, but never got one of the necessary round
tuits that is required to actually "get 'er done"...

My thought was to simply mount bearings on the box and let them run on
angle w/ a guide. I agree that need middle support or weight can easily
get excessive.

Large part of actual design depends on what is the
material/tools/whatever that is intended for use with...

--

The Idea with the strut is to provide the roller action in cases of
uplift as well as downward load, i.e. so the whole thing doesn't tip out
of the truck when you have the box at the back and lean on it. Definite
shortage of round tuits though...