Plywood over mesh trailer floor

[theducman]

I just bought a 5x8 from lowes for my bikes. It has the mesh floor on but I want to lay plywood over it to make it more rigid. Also I need to add wheel chocks too. My question is have any of you added ply over the mesh floor? If so how did you mout the ply to the trailer frame? Drill thru the ply and the metal trailer frame? My buddy says I should use U bolts and have them around the supports under the mesh floor.

Any help would be great, and pics too!!!

[JRide]

I just added some plywood to the rear of my trailer (mesh floor) for my pit bull stand. I drilled through the frame instead of using U bolts. Holds up great. I also considering added ply over the rest of the floor. At this point my front tire is on frame support for the tongue and my rear wheel is on the plywood I just put down so I'm not stressing the mesh floor.

[theducman]

What kind of drill did you use to get thru the steel?

[j4eric]

I want to know too...

[noxin]

Here's how I did in my trailer. http://www.nestreetriders.com/forum/...tml#post726064 I wanted a bit more strength than I thought regular plywood would provide, so I did 2x8 planks. If I was going to redo it, I'd go down to 1x8s.

I bolted through the frame rails and mounted DRings for tie down points and the wheel chock the same way.

[theducman]

Noxin, that helps me out alot. I have the same trailer. What did you use to drill thru the frame rails?

[noxin]

My Ryobi Drill with the appropriate drill bit. I locked the two outside planks in place first and then dropped the remainder in place, and drilled them in place.

Oh, for the items that aren't directly through a frame, I used washers to secure them to the mesh.

[Honclfibr]

What kind of drill did you use to get thru the steel?

Most any quality drill bit will cut steel. Just drill a pilot hole, use cutting oil, and don't push too hard.

[BostonSVkid]

If you run the drill too fast it will burn up the bit to keep it slow.

[noxin]

Oh, crap, apparently, I used 2x4, not 2x8. I would say to use 1x4 instead of 2x4.

I also recessed the bolts into the wood to make it easier.

[theducman]

thats helps alot, thanks guys

[JRide]

What kind of drill did you use to get thru the steel?

I used my Milwaukee cordless drill. I didn't have cutting oil and I did wind up killing two bits while drilling 8 holes.

[Rambunctous]

What kind of drill did you use to get thru the steel?

YouTube - Bushcraft Floating Hand Drill

[rbrais]

With a mesh floor you can just use carrige bolts with large washers. Drill up between the mesh and through the plywood. Use a washer big enough to span the mesh. It doesn't take much to hold plywood in place. Make sure you paint it or you'll be replacing it in a year or two.

[Stoneman]

With a mesh floor you can just use carrige bolts with large washers. Drill up between the mesh and through the plywood. Use a washer big enough to span the mesh. It doesn't take much to hold plywood in place. Make sure you paint it or you'll be replacing it in a year or two.

Back when I had a similar set-up, I just treated it with wood protector. Also, I used carriage/timber bolts so I wouldn't have to recess 'em...

[SVRACER01]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

This may be dumb but, why not drill holes in the plywood where the holes in the mesh are, then use a fender washer on the backside to hold it?

[caddydaddy]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

This may be dumb but, why not drill holes in the plywood where the holes in the mesh are, then use a fender washer on the backside to hold it?

That's what I did!

I used 3/4 inch pressure treated plywood and about 30 bolts throughout to hold it down.

[rbrais]

That's what I suggested. I think 30 bolts is kind of overkill. I'd go with 9 to 12. Just want to make sure the wind doesn't move it when the trailer is empty.

[theducman]

thanks for the help guys!