This Hitch-Mounted Conveyor Belt Turns Any Pickup Into a Dump Truck

Some truck guys buy lift kits and mud tires to impress everyone at Home Depot, but this… this is better. It’s an in-bed conveyor belt that essentially turns your truck’s existing box into a dump bed. All it needs to work is a receiver hitch and some wiring into the vehicle’s charging system, so whether you drive a beater ’90s Chevy or a $90,000 Silverado HD High Country, it’ll help you get more done—especially in scenarios where a dump trailer just won’t work for whatever reason.

It’s called the Truck Mate, and it sounds like the installation process is fairly straightforward. The instructions call for removing the tailgate, hooking up the Truck Mate to the hitch, hanging it up top on the tailgate posts, and wiring in the system’s two onboard batteries with the provided harness. It looks pretty heavy, though Mulch Mate’s site says the bulkhead can be lifted by two people. Still, odds are that once it’s on your truck it’s going to stay for a while.

Using it looks simple, too. There’s a big, roll-up tarp that runs the length of the bed and a tailgate with an integrated conveyor belt. Extend the tarp, fold down the tailgate, and you’re good to go. The tarp brings the mulch (or the sand, or whatever you’re hauling) toward the edge of the bed as it retracts. The material then drops onto the conveyor belt, which is controlled by a pair of switch panels, and exits to the left or the right side where you hopefully have a wheelbarrow waiting. Alternatively, you can remove the lower element to dump material directly behind the truck.

There’s no need to tilt the bed, and you won’t ruin your expensive bedliner by shoveling a ton of gravel out of the truck.

Pricing for the Truck Mate starts around $9,000 excluding shipping, so obviously it isn’t cheap. It’s meant to help you make money, though, and it could certainly be worth it for landscaping companies. That’s the target audience here. I’d say it makes sense if you don’t need the capacity of a full-on dump truck or trailer, and it also allows you to do the most with the rig you already have. Maybe it’s not for everybody, but it’s definitely for somebody.

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