Extendable truck rack
OwnerDon Nyberginventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An expandable rack for a truck bed used to transport lumber and the like is provided by a plurality of folding legs rigidly connected to an upper frame that supports the lumber. The folding legs allow the upper frame to retract completely within the truck bed compartment so as not to protrude over the edge of the truck bed side walls when not in use. Further, the configuration of the present invention provides an unobstructed truck bed in that no portion of the expandable rack except the folding legs occupy space on the truck bed floor, allowing the truck bed to be loaded without having to position the loaded materials over or around the rack. The present invention deploys easily to allow a single person to easily convert the rack from a retracted position to a deployed position.
Claims10
An expandable rack for mounting in the bed of a pick-up truck having a pick-up bed compartment defined by pick-up bed side walls, pick-up bed floor, and tail gate, the expandable rack comprising:
- a plurality of folding legs each having at least three rigid segments connected by a hinge assembly such that each rigid segment of the folding legs collapse to a side-by-side arrangement in a retracted position and an end-to-end arrangement in a deployed position;
- and
- an upper frame mounted on upper ends of the folding legs, said upper frame completely disposed within the pick-up bed compartment when the folding legs are in the retracted position and said upper frame disposed above the pick-up bed compartment when the folding legs are in the deployed position, and where no folding leg is linked to another folding leg except through the connection with the upper frame;
- wherein the rack does not occupy any space on the truck bed floor in the retracted or deployed positions except for the space occupied by the folding legs.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.