Cummins Dog
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2016
- Posts
- 156
- Reaction score
- 66
- Ram Year
- 2016
- Engine
- 6.7 Cummins
First off I’m a paranoid about drilling holes in my truck unless there’s no other way to do it, especially when I don’t know exactly what’s under where I have to drill. For that reason, when I got my load floor for my Tradesman, I figured out a way to install it without drilling (since, as you’ll see below, all of the required bolt holes weren’t there). Probably a lot of you will think this is kind of stupid but here’s how I did it without drilling into the truck.
One of the things I missed in my new 2016 Tradesman vs. my prior 2004 was the fold flat load floor. When I got my ’04 it didn’t have one either but I kept an eye on ebay and snagged one, along with the 60/40 rear seats, for cheap. When I pulled out the old bench seat there was a couple of cutouts in the floor covering and underneath those were all the holes and attached nuts I needed to install both the 60/40 seats and the load floor. I just had to buy 4 of the proper sized bolts. Anyway, that’s ancient history.
Fast forward to now. Again I keep an eye on ebay and in a surprisingly short time I found someone selling a nearly new crew cab load floor that they removed from their truck. It was about 60% of the price of a new one from the stealership and it was a crew cab one, which from what I’ve read, appears to be harder to find. So, the other day it shows up UPS at the door and I go to install it in the truck.
On a related note here I was a little disappointed about the material these are made of vs. the steel fold flat floor that was in the ’04 which was just about indestructible. I expect that I’ll probably break this thing someday but at least I’ll have the parts to use as templets to duplicate it out of something more solid.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I lift the rear bench seat and there’s a cutout in the floor covering, right where the bolt holes should be to mount the 60/40 rear seats and the brackets at the split of the load floor. I pull the cutout off and, damn, no holes, no bolt holes, no nuts, just the solid steel floor.
I also noticed that the pins that hold the rear of the outside load floor mounting brackets are missing also, just the hole is there.
Well, I’m a paranoid about drilling any holes in my truck (as I explained at the start of this) so I cogitated on this and figured a way to mount the load floor without drilling into the truck. I went to the hardware store and picked up a 1/8” x 2” x 4’ strap of aluminum, some fender washers, nyloc nuts and some elevator bolts (for those unfamiliar, these are like carriage bolts with a very broad very flat head).
Since I wasn’t holding down seats with these I just went with 3/8” bolts and fender washers and the aluminum instead of steel. It’s really just to keep the middle of the load floor in place when you open and close it so it doesn’t really have to be super strong, just strong enough.
The two seat belt anchors for the female ends of the middle and left side seat belts are right in line with where the load floor holes should be, so I cut two straps of aluminum to bolt down with the seat belt anchors to extend up to where the load floor attaches.
(continued below)
One of the things I missed in my new 2016 Tradesman vs. my prior 2004 was the fold flat load floor. When I got my ’04 it didn’t have one either but I kept an eye on ebay and snagged one, along with the 60/40 rear seats, for cheap. When I pulled out the old bench seat there was a couple of cutouts in the floor covering and underneath those were all the holes and attached nuts I needed to install both the 60/40 seats and the load floor. I just had to buy 4 of the proper sized bolts. Anyway, that’s ancient history.
Fast forward to now. Again I keep an eye on ebay and in a surprisingly short time I found someone selling a nearly new crew cab load floor that they removed from their truck. It was about 60% of the price of a new one from the stealership and it was a crew cab one, which from what I’ve read, appears to be harder to find. So, the other day it shows up UPS at the door and I go to install it in the truck.
On a related note here I was a little disappointed about the material these are made of vs. the steel fold flat floor that was in the ’04 which was just about indestructible. I expect that I’ll probably break this thing someday but at least I’ll have the parts to use as templets to duplicate it out of something more solid.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I lift the rear bench seat and there’s a cutout in the floor covering, right where the bolt holes should be to mount the 60/40 rear seats and the brackets at the split of the load floor. I pull the cutout off and, damn, no holes, no bolt holes, no nuts, just the solid steel floor.
I also noticed that the pins that hold the rear of the outside load floor mounting brackets are missing also, just the hole is there.
Well, I’m a paranoid about drilling any holes in my truck (as I explained at the start of this) so I cogitated on this and figured a way to mount the load floor without drilling into the truck. I went to the hardware store and picked up a 1/8” x 2” x 4’ strap of aluminum, some fender washers, nyloc nuts and some elevator bolts (for those unfamiliar, these are like carriage bolts with a very broad very flat head).
Since I wasn’t holding down seats with these I just went with 3/8” bolts and fender washers and the aluminum instead of steel. It’s really just to keep the middle of the load floor in place when you open and close it so it doesn’t really have to be super strong, just strong enough.
The two seat belt anchors for the female ends of the middle and left side seat belts are right in line with where the load floor holes should be, so I cut two straps of aluminum to bolt down with the seat belt anchors to extend up to where the load floor attaches.
(continued below)
