I want to add some tie down hooks inside the bed of my '65 El Co so I can strap down engines or motorcycles. Looking for something traditional looking that doesn’t rattle, any suggestions?
I put these inside of the bed on my El Camino. Not sure if you have access to put nuts on them with your application
you could bend a piece of 1/4" steel rod to a U shape, and put a bend in the ends to offset it, and weld it in place. Some times making parts is the easy way out.
On a 47 International we welded nuts to big steel plates with a hole through the plates. Mounted on the underside of the bed and used machinery eye bolts screwed through the pickup bed into the plates. When we needed a hold down, screwed the eye bolts into the plates. When not needed we unscrewed them and just had a hole in the bed, so the bed was flat.
I have eye bolts at four corners on my 46. One is above a fuel tank and some other stuff and real hard to get to the back side of. While it's apart right now I'm going to try using a nutsert in that spot so I don't have to struggle to get my arm in there again.
Hello, When we moved on from our drag racing adventures, we started surfing, but still delved into desert motorcycle racing. My brother and his friend started in the 250cc Novice class and they had a trailer to take the bikes out to the desert. At one time, we used the trailer behind the 58 Impala. That was enough, as it no longer looked black when the weekend event was finished. We had a solid steel trailer hitch welded on to our Impala to tow the 40 Willys 671 SBC C/Gas coupe. But, by the time I sold my Flathead Sedan Delivery and went away to college, I had a new 327 powered red El Camino for transportation. We installed 4 small u-bolts in each corner as low as possible. We had to check out the insertion point to make sure we could use a wrench and not hinder anything underneath the inner body panels. These were available at our local neighborhood hardware store and no other ones were available anywhere. The u-bolts had to be high enough to use a rubber coated “S” clip end to hook on the bike and to the bed. The one thing we wanted was to have them low enough so we could use any length rope or nylon straps. But, not get in the way of full usage of the El Camino bed. Jnaki It worked for many trips to the desert races. It also worked when we transported something large that needed tie down straps to hold them in place. But, as low as we placed them, we still hit them when we were inside of the bed doing adjusting or putting something other than bikes. So, we searched for something different. Right after we sold the bikes and the El Camino, we found this surface attachment that would have solved every bump an bruise on our ankles or legs. It was a one of a kind flat attachment to the side of the inner wall of the El Camino bed. Each “T” hook came out to do its job, then when finished and the bed was empty, neatly flipped back into its plate. It was fairly flat so no bumps or bruises would occur. My friend, who bought a newer El Camino the following year installed these in his empty bed. They were chromed and looked like a factory option. After we used the flip out hooks, they neatly went back into the flat mode. Note: There are a lot of hooks and eyelets available. But, from a teen to late 20 something days, little bruise marks on the ankles and shins were not the most fun thing to have after a hard days worth of racing in the desert. Or anywhere for that matter. YRMV
I am installing an oak bed in my 41 right now and I wanted tie downs as well. I found these stainless steel hinged tie downs on line, they have a spring to keep them from rattling when not in use. I sunk 4 of them into the outer boards with a router so they would be flush. I do plan to give them a trip across the buffer prior to install.
Look in the back of some older SUVs and some of them have black tie downs........some of them have a ring that pivots. I mounted a couple of them inside the tailgate on my pick up truck. Then when I haul gas cans I can secure them to the tailgate. When I haul a motor, they keep it from sliding forward. Not too noticeable since they are painted black and I have a black bed liner.
I used these in the post holes of a pickup I owned at one time. The may not work for your application but they looked nice and worked well for me.
There’s also the spring loaded type, they sit fairly flush and don’t rattle. More of hook than an eyelet.
My buddy wanted to add tie-downs to his '51 AD pickup. While certainly functional, we rejected the standard hardware/marine options as looking a little too "Home Depot" for our tastes. We would up going with a set of '73-'79 Ford bed cleats. They look the part, and have served quite well. Got them in the Hamb classifieds for a good price. You might be able to source some from eBay or a wrecking yard. New ones are $25 each from LMC truck. Edit: Having said that, I do like the ones posted by @Bandit Billy and @Bleach that fold flush.
The simplicity of this ^^^^ is ....... NO MOVING PARTS I use eye-bolts for the 6 point harness in my race cars [they must be 7/16 UNF for our regulations] This is up to FIA homologation specs On the underside I glued a plate with a captive nut [these are available over the counter in NZ for seatbelt compliance] Our seatbelt regulations require 30 square cm , so you can get them rectangle or square shaped to fit the contour of the floor. The Glue I used is "Bostik ISR 70-03" that is crazy strong [so you don't need to do any welding] If not being used, simply remove the eye-bolts and install a button head cap screw in the hole @Racingsnake you could probably cut the seatbelt anchors from a wrecked car
Sorry I wrote 30 cm sq it should have meant 30 sq cm Our regulations were 30 sq cm [area] That is 5.5cm x 5.5 cm [55mm x 55mm] or approx 2-1/8" x 2-1/8" In the pillars of my 57 Chevy the anchors are 35mm x 90mm [3.5 x 9cm] so it still has a slightly larger area. These are our Transport rules [you can go larger if you want] They stipulate a 10mm [1cm] radius on the corners to prevent tearing the parent material. these are the upper pillar plates for my 57 Chevy [the riveted screws are sacrificial, and are to screw curtain wire to it to drag them up inside the pillar They were plug welded on the pillars On a pickup bed [or trailer] I would use glue, it is much stronger
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