Bent my rail brackets.

Used the truck bed to bring home a giant freezer standing up right in the bed. We secured it down to the rails with my 3300 lb. ratchet straps. My mistake. I should have used the metal loops mounted into the four corner of the bed. Way stronger. And the rails are clearly not designed for such large loads. Lesson learned. I’m a truck noob, what can I say.

So…time to replace the brackets to the rails. I may be able to bend them back but may just replace them if I can get something stronger. They appear to just be made out of aluminum. I would think a hardier metal like steel might not stay mounted to the side walls very well.

What are my options? Best to just replace with like aluminum mounting brackets? Or is there something better/stronger/more capable I can get?

Pretty sure these are just OEM rails.

 

Granted the corner tie downs are stronger , however I've never seen bedrails mounted like that.
Do you have a retrax cover on there?

 

That is a rail drop down kit made by BAK. The kit is required for certain bed covers. The kit is made of aluminum. There are supposed to be 4 on each side. Either your truck didn't have all of them installed or they could have been made by a previous owner. You can probably have some made from steel.

Edit....it may be 6 on each side depending in if the truck is a Crew Max or DC.

 

I have a Bakflip MX4. I didn’t pay any attention to how the rails were mounted before or after the Bakflip install, which was almost immediately after I bought the truck. How are they supposed to be mounted???

 

Ahh. Makes sense.

 

I have a crewmax and this is how mine were installed (driver side is the same).

 

Basically it's one of the plates at every screw location where the rail mounts to the bed.

 

Those could be straightened with a bench vise and some brute force

 

I have a BAK revolver and these are what my drop brackets look like. 5 per side on a CM.

 

I have an Undercover Flex and it uses the OEM rail location..

 

I tried to order the brackets from Undercover for my Bakflip and they would not sell them to me. I use my rails and want them bolted to the body, so I ended up removing the drop brackets and just putting the clamps directly to the bed lips

 

which factory is that? Mine came with the cleats and sprayed bed liner from Toyota. Curious if it was from the factory or dealer did that and is it 200 lbs also? My bed liner and cleats look too good to be from the dealer but who knows. lol

if it's only 200lbs, OP should be able to easily fix his like @Coastboater said.

 

do you have a photo you can share?

 

The cover my old man bought had the same drop down brackets.

he opted for ditching the tie down rails and sold them.

just another thought if you aren’t happy with others suggestions.