The Norwesco Saddle 500 Gallon is a black steel cradle - listed under Norwesco's flat-bottom cradle line - built to carry a polyethylene tank on a truck bed, trailer, or skid. A tank running on improvised supports concentrates its load at whatever points happen to touch the deck; a purpose-built cradle spreads that load so the tank shell, the deck, and the tie-down hardware all see the stresses they were designed for. The "500 Gallon" designation refers to the tank class this cradle is sized for; the pack of numbers below tells you whether it fits your rig.
Specifications: length is the fit gate
Start with the footprint, because it is the constraint that decides fit: this cradle runs 132 inches - a full 11 feet - along the deck, by 20 inches wide, standing 26 inches tall. That 11-foot length, not the gallon rating, is what has to clear your bed before anything else matters. The cradle itself is steel and weighs 138 lb empty. It has no outlet, lid, or plumbing penetrations - this is support hardware only. Before ordering, verify the cradle dimensions against your deck space and against the cradle spec published for your specific Norwesco tank, so the tank you intend to seat is the one this frame was shaped for.
The mistake to avoid
The most common failure with mobile tanks is running them on wood blocks, loose dunnage, or a bare deck. Point loading flexes the polyethylene shell with every mile and every fill cycle, and abrasion at those contact points is where tanks fail early. A steel cradle exists to prevent exactly that. The second mistake is under-spec'ing the vehicle: water runs roughly 8.34 lb per gallon, so a loaded 500 gallon tank carries about 4,170 lb of water - add the tank itself and this 138 lb cradle and you are planning around a 4,300+ lb payload. Work through capacity and loaded-weight planning with our Tank Sizing Calculator and Tank Sizing Guide before you commit to a bed or axle rating.
Freight and availability
This Norwesco cradle ships LTL, quoted live to your ZIP, from the nearest of ten plants: Fairfield TX, Griffin GA, Hanford CA, Owego NY, Shawnee OK, Sheldon IA, St. Bonifacius MN, Tooele UT, Washington Court House OH, or Washougal WA. Get a live quote with the Freight Cost Estimator, or call 866-418-1777 and we will price the cradle and its matching tank on the same shipment.
