With the water supply done for the Chicken Truck the next and pretty much last thing I had to do on the truck itself was make a cover or shell for the bed. Unfortunately I couldn't find a camper shell that would fit this bed so my next option was to make one from scratch. Since I had plenty of scrap metal laying around this wouldn't be hard. My plan was to make a frame using conduit, welding everything together then cladding the frame with some corrugated sheet metal I had salvaged from some past outbuilding demolition. I started off with making what I would like to call "ribs" of the frame. These are the parts of the frame going across the truck bed from left to right. I used a pipe bender to bend the long pipe to have the same angles as the cab itself so when I put the frame together and cover it with the sheet metal, the lines will flow seamlessly from front to back, compared to if I just made a shell that had 90 degree angles, like a box. I got one rib done and welded the ends of the pipe right to the top of the bed right at the front, ensuring that the bends and angles match up to the cab. I even did some light welds to the back of the cab to keep everything solid. I did this same thing two more times, putting a rib at the back of the bed over the tailgate and one mid ways between the front and back. From here I welded four lengths of pipe laterally along the top of the ribs on the left and right sides, connecting the ribs together to complete the overall frame. With the frame done I pulled out the corrugated sheet metal. These sections were about 8ft long, far longer than the bed of the truck. This made things easier as I only had to secure the sheet metal to the frame laterally, not having to overlap sections as I work my way back. I only needed four sections of sheet metal, one on each side and two across the top, overlapping the left and right side sheets so any rainwater runoff will run over the side and not leak down into the bed. Using self tapping screws going through the sheet metal and into the pipe frame, I was able to get the covering completed. All I had to do from there is saw off the overhanging sheet metal flush with the rear section of the frame to complete that part of the cover. The last part of the project is the hatch for the bed cover. Just like the bed frame, it too was made from conduit. I made measurements of the top and bottom of the opening and the sides so I could cut four pieces of pipe matching these dimensions. I laid the pipes out in the shape to match the opening to the bed cover and welded the frame together. I test fitted the frame to verify that it would fit in place in the opening of the bed cover then went ahead and welded on a pair of hinges to the top corners of the frame. Finally I took some scrap chicken wire and wire tied it all around the frame, trimming off the excess before hanging the hatch in place. With that I went ahead and lined up a point on the sheet metal from the inside where the pipe would make contact from the water bucket and drilled a hole through the metal. I assembled the pipe and pressure regulator and poked it through the sheet metal, screwing it in place in the float valve. I made my custom garden hose as stated in the previous post so I can connect the regulator to the Y pipe down by the Mustang. When I turned the water on the float valve worked just fine after making a last minute adjustment to the float, filling up slowly with no extreme pressure. Once the water level pushed the float up it softly shut the valve killing water flow into the bucket. The water had filled the drinker cups slowly already so at that point everything was ready to rock and roll. All that's left now is installing the outlet box and hooking the power cord I currently have in the ground up to it and plugging both cars up to get everything powered up. We have to add mulch to the truck then finally move the birds into their new home.
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