Adjusting Your Full Size Pick Up Truck

Do you have a full size pick up truck and want to make it safer and worth a little more? With full size pick up trucks this is a very easy thing to do because of the endless options, … although we’re only going to talk about a few of them.

If you live in a snow & ice climate, are you one of the many people that throws sand bags in the bed of your truck for extra weight and traction? This is a effective way of doing extra weight, no doubt about it. However, some have argued it looks unsightly in the bed of the truck and they may take away from the hauling capacity of the bed. This is true, you really can’t haul a arm chair or garbage cans if the floor of the bed has sand bags all over it.

Consider this option. Install a metal truck box in the bed of your truck under the rear window. These are boxes that rest on the sides of the truck bed and go across the width of the bed under the rear window. They come in different colors such as aluminum, white or black. Most of them are lockable. These boxes, even though you don’t haul tools, have another great purpose. Load them up with sand bags. Once you slam the lid of the box, look at the truck with the tailgate down. You would never know the truck is loaded down with sand bags just by looking at it. You also have plenty of open floor space on the bed of your truck for hauling other things. Plus, you still have the sand bags, but with a far better cosmetic appearance to the truck. This is not only a good idea for the family use pick up truck, …but pick up trucks that plow snow can also benefit from this cosmetic way of carrying sand bags.

Does your truck have a factory style one piece rear window? Make a beneficial change here too. Replace it with a tinted window that can open for fresh air. A tinted or screen printed rear window can help keep the hot sun off the heads and shoulders of people riding inside. This makes the truck more comfortable and reduces the chance of sunlight fading out the top of the seats. Installing a tinted window that opens gives a unbelievable cross draft for fresh air.

Brush guards and grill guards are more than a decoration. They help protect your vehicle from ‘a more costly collision repair’ than if it didn’t have one at all. Lets say two trucks of the same type get in identical accidents. One truck has a guard, the other doesn’t. They both had the front ends hit.

The truck with the guard has a damaged brush guard, some minor damage to lights, hood and grill. The truck without the brush guard has all the same damage as the other truck, … plus radiator, shroud, fan, transmission lines, and maybe the battery. In most cases this truck won’t be driven away and may need a tow truck. When buying one of these guards, make sure you buy a good one.

Now that the front of the truck is protected with a functional accessory, the same can be done with the back of the truck simply by installing a full size class three receiver hitch if one isn’t already present. These are some of the toughest trailer hitches made and are very heavy. The hitch will serve its towing purpose as well as provide protection. The protection comes in the way these hitches really beef up the rear frame area of the truck because they can take one heck of a impact in a rear end collision. It’s for this reason the rear frame tines of your truck are less likely to suffer unfixable damage in a rear end collision.

Toughen up your automatic transmission. Add a transmission cooler. Start using a product I absolutely swear by. Start running ‘Lucas’ transmission additive in your transmission fluid. Normally I’m not a big fan of fluid additives. This product is a exception to this, … not only do I use it, but I encourage others to use it and ‘feel’ the difference in how tight your vehicle feels when you drive it. This product also extends the life and health of your transmission fluid and drastically reduces transmission aging. A awesome product for fleet vehicles, work trucks and plow trucks. You can also use it in cars. I’ve been running ‘Lucas’ in my last eight vehicles as preventative maintenance. Absolutely good stuff.

Reporter Joseph Toth

Washington Micro Bank BBS