Leveling Pickup bed to the hitch rails

Those drop in liners are the best paint remover and rust promoters around.
Frank.

My Ford came with one of those drop in bedliners, I just took it out and installed the custom rail kit from Curt and cut the plastic liner around the rails.

It is fairly flush.

Thanks for the ideas guys. I like the deck idea. I got hung up on the pad. I'm glad I asked & appreciate the responses.

My truck has a BedRug that is about 3/4" thick. I cut out openings that fit tight to the rails. Lumber and plywood slide right over the top. The BedRug or BedMat is very easy on the knees when crawling around in the bed. Stuff will slide around some compared to a rubber mat. Also, very lightweight.

X-whatever on the wood flooring. Seen it more times that I can remember.

Lyle

In my old '03 F250, the floor of the box IMO was getting a little soft so I made a wood sub floor and had it from front to back & side to side. Sadly, didn't take any pics of it, but it did turn out quite well. Think I ran a couple 1 by's crossways in front and behind the hitch then screwed in 1 by's front to back (sorts like building a deck on your house). Want to say too that I did something similar on sides of hitch & between rails too. To get right height, I just measured from top floor rib to top of rail. If anything, the sub floor may have been a tad higher than the rails, but that was ok for me.

Just put the mat over the top, cut 4 holes for attachment points. It leaves a couple ripples, but not enough to bother for most things. You can still use a piece of plywood, with several cross boards under, if absolutely needing flat surface.

Jerry

I used 3/4” plywood cut to fit around the rails and the contour of the bed. I then laid the standard bed mat over top of that. It took two 4x8 sheets to do it. By laying them sideways and cutting them to fit, it allowed me to go the full width of the bed in front and behind the wheel wells (if that makes sense).

If you are wanting just a level surface, the horse mats are available 1" thick in 4X4 or 4X6. What I did was use several 2X4 cross pieces and 3/4" plywood the length of the bed to have a surface I could load with a forklift.

agesilaus wrote:
Are you intending to put rubber pads between the hitch and the bottom of the truck bed?! I predict stretched and broken mounting bolts in your future at the minimum. But if you want to persist in this scheme Tractor Supply sells horse stall rubber pads that appear to be about an inch or so thick. Not big enough to cover the full bed, I'd guess, IIRC, that they may be 4 ft square. Look up their website.

But you could probably reproduce the effect just by stacking an inch or more of flat washers under the hitch around the mounting bolts. Let us know how it goes.

No, I think the OP wants to build up the floor to be even with the rails.
I wish I had an idea for the OP.