hat channel

Anyone come with a good replacement for hat channel, other than hat channel? gonna replace some of mine and would like to use something other than replacement channel. Regardless I am going to drill holes in the bottom of them so that water and mud doesn't stand in them like now.

Any ideas?

 

Somebody here used rectangular thin-wall steel tubing. Raybuck sells sticks of hat channel for repair of pickup truck beds.

 

Why couldn't you use a flat bar - say 1/4 inch?

You only need the hat channel for the part that goes on top of the frame -- say 3 inches or so.

The bar would not accumulate water inside. I've never tried that, but it seems like it should work.


What I have done once was to cut the bottom of the hat channel out which left me two metal pieces sticking up (when the body was upside down). It sort of formed a 'hat groove" around 2 inches wide.

Then, after rust treating the inside of what was then the hat groove, I laid in a layer of fiberglass about halfway filling the hat groove. I then put in a metal bar similar to what I described above and filled the remainder of the hat groove with fiberglass.

I had pre-drilled the metal bar with holes for mounting to the frame, and held them in place in alignment with the body mount holes with a bolt whilst the fiberglass cured.

It went together fine although it took a day or so to cure. Man, that stuff gets hot.

 

I just went by a local a/c sheetmetal shop and they bent some up for me. I've also used some that Eastwood sells.

 

I used 1x2x1/8 tubing. Its a little heavier than stock but it is beefy.

 

X2. Used it to replace all the rotten hat channel under the '6. Much stronger and easier to work with. Nickmil