Alu-Cab Gladiator Bed Cap

[steffen707]

Unfortunately it would be crazy expensive if you bought all the 80/20 brand new. I was fortunate enough to be in the right place to get a mess of it for free and I bought a bundle of it cheap on CL from a guy that had used it for frame work for solar panels on a house. Having a Bridgeport I could do all the machining myself for square cuts and fastener pockets. What amazed me was the as found stock was nearly to length for the JT! Only had a couple of inches of waste on each length. That sealed the deal on using it for this project.....
Although an optioned out steel Commercial bed slide starts looking like $2k and aluminum even more, new 80/20 and substituting some angle to reduce price might work out price wise. Even the Accuslide tracks are pricey enough that upon discovering I had two righthand slides I “converted” one into a leftie....
This will make you cough up your cereal..... I have about $200 bucks into this!!!

How did you know i was eating cereal? A smart man takes advantage of those opportunities.

A co-worker's great uncle had a sawmill cut up a bunch of oak and pine into everything from 4x6, 3x12, 1x12 and everything inbetween. He had been moving this 6-8,000 board feet of wood from different outbuildings and lean to shelters for 30-40 years. He used some of it to side a pole shed, but developed ocular degeneration, a back problem and some other ailment in his 80s and wanted to get rid of the wood. I only wanted the 1x6x8x10x12s to begin with, but I didn't want to cherry pick all this wood, so I shot him an offer and bought the whole lot for $1750...about 20-30 CENTS a board foot. I build a shed to house the wood, but still didn't have enough space or time to move it all. Contacted a local developing wood worker that did some work for us. Sold him the rest for $750 and he's making me a coffee table with some of it.

Anyway....NICE 80/20 Score @Rokon .

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[steffen707]

Hey @smlobx , (because i know he has a cabinet) my cabinet came with some deep enough scratches in the side that you could see bare aluminum. It would hit the light just right when both sides of canopy were open, and I was kinda bumbed. I used a sharpie to paint the scratches, and then discovered goo gone didn't take off the excess, BUT Goof Off did. I sprayed it on a papertowel and lightly rubbed the excess away but not so hard that the towel went into the cracks. Now I don't even notice it, and can only see with the right light.

For all Team Alu-Cab

This approach might also help for other scratches on alu-cab's stuff. Inside or outside.

Use at own risk, ESPECIALLY ON THE OUTSIDE. =)

 

[smlobx]

Awesome

Hey @smlobx , (because i know he has a cabinet) my cabinet came with some deep enough scratches in the side that you could see bare aluminum. It would hit the light just right when both sides of canopy were open, and I was kinda bumbed. I used a sharpie to paint the scratches, and then discovered goo gone didn't take off the excess, BUT Goof Off did. I sprayed it on a papertowel and lightly rubbed the excess away but not so hard that the towel went into the cracks. Now I don't even notice it, and can only see with the right light.

For all Team Alu-Cab

This approach might also help for other scratches on alu-cab's stuff. Inside or outside.

Use at own risk, ESPECIALLY ON THE OUTSIDE. =)

Awesome!
Keep up the good work...maybe you should look into getting a distributorship for your neck of the woods. Just think of all the stuff you could get for (relatively) cheap???

 

[Blade1668]

Something you might want to try if gluing it down.
A "small" trick I learned from re-doing headliners is to line it with plastic sheeting on top of carpet/ headliner and filling up with play sand or something to hold it formed fully in corners. Let it set for a few days to dry then dump sand or vacuum sand out. this when I re-done my MJ headliner and XJ (second time) after having it to come loose and failure to stick. Using the Direction's it didn't work for me this method did, but I was living in a rainy humid location in spring time AKA Savannah GA. area.

 

[steffen707]

Something you might want to try if gluing it down.
A "small" trick I learned from re-doing headliners is to line it with plastic sheeting on top of carpet/ headliner and filling up with play sand or something to hold it formed fully in corners. Let it set for a few days to dry then dump sand or vacuum sand out. this when I re-done my MJ headliner and XJ (second time) after having it to come loose and failure to stick. Using the Direction's it didn't work for me this method did, but I was living in a rainy humid location in spring time AKA Savannah GA. area.

cool, i just sprayed the carpet and inside of cabinet with 3m 90, waited 2 minutes it tacked up, and it was actually hard to install, but it gives like 10 minutes of working time. got it lined up pretty well, rubbed down each side, good to go i think.

 

[Rokon]

Did the first fit up of the bedslide today. It was a real squeaker with zero slop fit between the wheel wells. By removing the rear plastic spacer of the original bed tie down and socketing it down tight I lost a tie down but gained a stout no drill bed mount. Slide frame just slips under the hinge body of the tiedown. Nylon spacer and a SS plate sandwich the tie down ring to the top of the frame rail. No rear mounts yet.....

 

[steffen707]

Did the first fit up of the bedslide today. It was a real squeaker with zero slop fit between the wheel wells. By removing the rear plastic spacer of the original bed tie down and socketing it down tight I lost a tie down but gained a stout no drill bed mount. Slide frame just slips under the hinge body of the tiedown. Nylon spacer and a SS plate sandwich the tie down ring to the top of the frame rail. No rear mounts yet.....

did you shim up the left and right rails of the frame with like 1/4" of wood so the drawer would clear the tailgate?
Oh, and how tall is the platform? (thickness of the square tube?)

 

[Rokon]

did you shim up the left and right rails of the frame with like 1/4" of wood so the drawer would clear the tailgate?
Oh, and how tall is the platform? (thickness of the square tube?)

Bottom of the 3” rail sits at the same height as the top ridge of the bed. Floor of the slide platform is 3 1/8” above the top ridges of the bed. The rear doesn't sit on a ridge but on the lower portion of the bed. There is a 3/8” nylon shim pad under it at that point.

 

[Rokon]

Did weigh the bed slide, minus 1/8” top and top rails. Came in at 85 lbs.
Added for anchor points each side of the fixed frame. About a 1/4” of clearance when tail gate is closed. Front of slide frame is butted up to the front wall of the bed.

 

[Rokon]

Sheet aluminum weighs 29lb, upper slide rails weigh 20lb so all up weight is 134lbs. Pretty happy with that. Going to have the sheet LineX'd and there is some hardware to include so probably 145lbs all together.

 

[steffen707]

Did weigh the bed slide, minus 1/8” top and top rails. Came in at 85 lbs.
Added for anchor points each side of the fixed frame. About a 1/4” of clearance when tail gate is closed. Front of slide frame is butted up to the front wall of the bed.

When you're bored, can you weigh the alucab canopy?

I'm making some drawers for mine @rokon,then I'm thinking of making a very low profile 3 to 4 foot bed slide using 1/8" aluminum and 1/4" UHWM for the deck with 3or 4 foot drawer slides. I'm wondering how much weight the aluminum and uhmw would support if it only hangs 1-2 feet over the edge of the drawers. It would be just to help get stuff out of the back of the bed, towards the front, but not fully out like your setup. I just don't want to sacrifice 3" of vertical space for the convenience. Different design constraints I guess.

 

[takeitsleazy]

Wait, I might’ve misread, but is your whole slide tied down in the front of the bed by the tie downs as shown in the picture? Or is it also bolted in the rear somewhere?

Edit- I saw you added “no rear mounts”, so what are you thinking to address it? The build looks great, that’s a small fortune in materials you’ve got there. Good shit

 

[steffen707]

Wait, I might’ve misread, but is your whole slide tied down in the front of the bed by the tie downs as shown in the picture? Or is it also bolted in the rear somewhere?

Edit- I saw you added “no rear mounts”, so what are you thinking to address it? The build looks great, that’s a small fortune in materials you’ve got there. Good shit

This hole is accessible from the fender area.

 

[Rokon]

When you're bored, can you weigh the alucab canopy?

I'm making some drawers for mine @rokon,then I'm thinking of making a very low profile 3 to 4 foot bed slide using 1/8" aluminum and 1/4" UHWM for the deck with 3or 4 foot drawer slides. I'm wondering how much weight the aluminum and uhmw would support if it only hangs 1-2 feet over the edge of the drawers. It would be just to help get stuff out of the back of the bed, towards the front, but not fully out like your setup. I just don't want to sacrifice 3" of vertical space for the convenience. Different design constraints I guess.

Jon, the cap weighs 126lbs.
With the tonneau cover I always ran out of height room.....
With all the enclosed height now I didn't have one bit of despair over giving back 3”.
Just installing was an eye opener in convenience. Had to crawl into the bed s few times to fiddle with the mount setup and fit the parts. Working on the floor panel and rail of that same location now pulled out to the tailgate area meant standing outside to do it.
More to come!

 

[Rokon]

Wait, I might’ve misread, but is your whole slide tied down in the front of the bed by the tie downs as shown in the picture? Or is it also bolted in the rear somewhere?

Edit- I saw you added “no rear mounts”, so what are you thinking to address it? The build looks great, that’s a small fortune in materials you’ve got there. Good shit

@takeitsleazy there will be rear mounts for sure. A bunch of choices and haven't looked to close yet to make any decisions.
Stay tuned!

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