Strip Down Your Heavy Duty Used Pickup and Outfit It for Your Roofing Business
If you're running a roofing business, and you have a used pick-up truck that you have been using for your work, then it is a good idea to strip it down and outfit it for serious work. When you are using your pickup truck as a vehicle for business, you need to make it useful for transporting roofing materials and storing your tools. A stock pickup truck is simply unfit for use as a full time roofing vehicle. However, with a few simple adjustments, you can solve that. Here's what you should do.
Heavy Duty Tires
The first thing you need to do is change out the tires. You will need to have heavy duty tires placed onto your truck for two reasons. First, you are going to be adding a large aluminum truck body to the rear flatbed section. This will increase the weight, and you need stronger tires to handle it. Secondly, on many construction sites, the ground is going to be unpaved, rutted, and possibly littered with nails or other debris. A heavy duty tire is essential in preventing flat tires.
Aluminum Truck Body For The Rear
The most important change to your truck is going to involve a big aluminum body. These are installed either on top of the existing bed, or you can have a mechanic remove the structure of the old flatbed and install the replacement aluminum bed. The new bed will be larger, with higher sides.
You can get an aluminum body that has large cabinets. These are excellent for hiding your tools. As a contractor, you recognize the danger of tool theft while on the job. There are often other contractors present, and someone might swipe a tool out of your bed. That's why most people have a lock box in their bed. The problem with a truck bed lock box is that it takes up space, space that could be used to store asphalt shingles, tarps, or ladders. So, an aluminum truck body with side boxes frees up all that space. You will be able to store heavy rolls of roofing paper, stacks of asphalt shingles, and heavy buckets of sealer in your bed now.
You should also get an attachment for the aluminum frame that will allow you to place your ladder on top. The brackets for the ladder can be attached to the aluminum body and extend up into the air. This lets the ladder rest above the body and sit on top of your truck. It's vastly superior to trying to fit the ladder in the truck bed, which often ends up with one end sticking up in the air awkwardly and shifting around the truck (not to mention you lose the space for shingles, roofing paper, and sealant). For more information, contact a business such as Martin Truck Bodies, Inc.