The story behind the creation of the Bedder-Hedder is one that may be familiar to many truck owners. It begins with a load of cargo-in this case, a steel plaster-mixer drum strapped to a pallet and placed in the bed of a Ford crew cab dualie.
What the driver did not plan for during the three-hour drive to San Diego, and never even considered was a possibility, was that the pallet would try to force its way into the back seat of the truck. The experience led the driver on a path he never thought about taking: that of an inventor, fabricator, and holder of several trademarks. "Like most truck owners," Mitch Weiss says, "I assumed that my truck bed was a fortress unto itself. There was no way to conceive that Dodge, Ford, or GM would not do everything in their power to make the truck bed with the strength of a bank vault, but of course, they don't.
"When I was cut off during that drive home and hit my brakes hard," Weiss says, "the force of that pallet hitting the front of the truck bed, also known as the bed head, was so jarring and loud that I thought I had been rear-ended by a semitruck! In reality, I discovered that my vaultlike truck bed was really a cardboard box, and the repairs cost me $1,400, as the bed head bent and damaged the rear of the truck cab.
"Once the damage was repaired," Weiss continues, "I had a local fabricator create a 1/8-inch steel cap, which went over the top of the bed head and halfway down the face; I also created some serious bedrail covers, but that's another story. Soon that truck gave way to another Ford. By this time, my family began camping and off-roading, and I started a flooring-removal business and had to transport 3-gallon propane tanks, so I began adding clamps and eyebolts to my bed-head covers."
With the purchase of an '02 Chevy 2500 extra-cab Duramax, Weiss finally created the ultimate bed-head cover. It covered the entire front of the truck bed and had a slot for a custom-made fuel-jug holder for five jugs and two propane tank holders, all easily removed if the entire bed needed to be used. He also created rail covers with 1/2-inch D-rings welded to the sides at all four corners. His truck bed was bulletproof . . . but what about everyone else's?
To attach the Bedder-Hedder...
To attach the Bedder-Hedder to the truck bed, it must first be placed over the bed head.
Make sure the Bedder-Hedder...
Make sure the Bedder-Hedder is solidly in place.
Using a C-clamp to make sure...
Using a C-clamp to make sure the Bedder-Hedder wouldn't move during drilling, we marked all five holes with a felt-tip pen.