Tilt bed floor

[tdishon]

I'm looking to have just the floor of my stepside bed tilt up. I want it to be hinged up by the cab. I think it needs to lift up and out a little while going up. Kinda like the hood. I was thinking about using some type of hood hinge. Has anyone done a tilt bed? Looking for advice.
Thanks guys.

[mongocanfly]

Depending on your hinge placement it may not need to move out when going up....there's quite a few people doing the lifting bed floors for one reason or other....I don't think hood springs will hold up the weight of a wood floor....most use gas cyl ,linear actuators,or nothing but a prop rod to hold the floor up....
Google hinged bed floor.....lots of info....

[mr48chev]

I'd use a pair of gas struts for a mini van tailgate to hold it up.

I was thinking a cheap pair of suicide door hinges would work as they wouldn't show but let the floor hinge up and go back right in place. These aren't that cheap but a pair is 20 bucks less than buying a set of four. https://www.ebay.com/itm/TWO-NEW-SUI...from=R40&rt=nc

[joedoh]

tilting the entire bed floor is not very useful in my opinion. I understand people do it for access to suspension or gas tanks or air suspension but what they dont realize until after its done is that it doesnt really give access unless you can raise it almost 90 degrees, otherwise you are cramming your body in between the tilted floor and the parts you are trying to access, with the bed sides in the way. if you want to see what I mean, put a 4x8 sheet of wood in the bed, lift it even to 45 degrees at the back and see what you can reach. it doesnt work very well.

so if you only need, say, access to the fuel tank filler at the back of the bed, make a smaller section of just the rear floor swing up.

I did a 65 shortbed with 22" wheels and 315/35/22 tires and there was no way to change a flat, so we tilted the whole bed on a custom hinge, it could go over 90 (oblique) and rest the tailgate almost flat on the ground and gave access to all the air ride and well, everything.

IMG_8306 by Joe Doh, on Flickr