Building a recovery truck

[Josho]

Sorry to invade your fine forum.

Just it seems to be the best forum for recovery truck builds!

I have an Iveco Daily LWB panel van with a wrecked body. I'd like to cut the body behind the cab and then unbolt the body from the chassis.

I can do all this easy enough it's just a few questions on building the body.

I'd love to do it in ally but it's beyond my skill level welding ally. It's a seperate chassis van but I'll probably unfortunately have to lay down two tracks of box section for strength as they aren't the most strong chassis in the world.

I'm thinking about 18 foot body. I want it it be as big as possible as I'm potentially going to uprate to 5 tonne. I know the implications of this!

Just a few questions. Is the beavertail vital? Does it make a huge difference as I'd love to have it just a flat bed!

How wide realistically should it be?

Also, I've seen a 14 foot flat bed body on eBay. How comes nobody ever just adds a beavertail to an original flat bed and rip them off to start a fresh? Just thinking it could save a lot of time and money!

Cheers!!!

[Wadey]

I think you will struggle making it from a Pannel van as it's not got a seperate chassis
There beaver tail so you can get cars on with out massive Ramps as they would bottom out on the Angle and I think your I'll find 18f is to long I believe the biggest you can make from a transit and I'm assuming an Iveco is 16ft something to do with the overhang I think it's only allowed to be 1/3 of the original wheel base

[Josho]

Hi mate cheers for the input!

I need to find out the wheelbase of the Iveco but it is quite long!

Also the chassis is seperate on the Daily so it's a case of split the seams behind the cab which is really no big deal and unbolt it!

[DodgeRover]

Watch the weight of your build if you want to be able to run legally at under 3.5t with any modern vehicle on board, thats why so many people go for ally bodys