I am kicking my self for buying a reg. cab truck. Ok here is the deal I like to ride dirt bikes and when a buddy and I go riding if we take my single cab truck there will be no room for gear. So I was thinking maybe I could find a long bed and put it on my truck, then have a truck box in the bed and fit two dirt bikes in there. So my question is can you put a long bed on a short bed frame? Or how hard would it be to put an extended cab on my frame?

Thanks,
Brian

You can't mount a long bed; the mounts are in different spots, and yep, you'd have to extend the frame. The FSM for the '85 here should give you long/short frame dims. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Most folks up here with their toys on their Toys have made an across-bed platform, and secured their stuff up there, and put their gear beneath and out of the weather. Looks a little rad, but it works.

Do have a link so that I could see some pictures of what you are talking about?

Thanks,
Brian

In addition to the bed mounts not lining up and the frame needing to be lengtheded, the wheel well would also be in the wrong place.

For the short term, you might consider building a wedge shaped box that the front tires of the bikes mount to w/the riding gear underneath.

Depending on your fabrication skills, you might consider building a flatbed designed to hold the bikes, built in storage for riding/camping gear, and a pull out ramp for loading the bikes.

I haven't taken any measurements yet but I was thinking about leaving my truck box in to put the gear in. Then making some tire chocks that go under the truck box to to the front tires of the dirt bikes to hold them in place. then have some rails made like the ones in the link and bolt them to the bed of course I would leave the tail gate down and it would extend over the tail gate about a foot. I would want to make it so that they would be easy to take in and out. http://www.motorcyclecarrier.net/

I don't think you are going to like how the truck handles w/the weight of two bike hanging off the hitch like that.

What type of terrain do you normally travel over to the areas you ride in, do you need the clearance of your truck, if you don't, you might consider picking up a small used trailer, or build one out of a 2wd frame and bed, shouldn't run you more than $500 to do either.

If you need the clearance of your truck, look for an import lumber rack/shorten it up(say over the cab and about half way over the bed) and build a storage space on it. You can usually find those for a couple of hundred.