just like the title said where can i find genuine FORD bedsides for my '96 F-150 short bed single tank thanks

 

A 1996 f-150 truck.....Not being a smart a$$, but 99% of the replacement parts are from private companies.....

 

haha ya but im from PA and it very very very.... hard 2 find these beds and if u do they on a very nice truck and its dumb 2 tare apart a nice truck if u r able 2 find 1... and the repo body panels always stick out the dont look as good arent as study and i know it sounds dumb but i have OCD and just the fact that i know the body isnt all FORD would drive me nuts...

 

just fix yours, a good bodyman can work wonders.

 

no matter how good the body man is skins are always noticeable and again it have OCD and i did break down about a month ago and got 3 quotes they range from $793-$930 for one bedside that insane ill drive 2 texas or arizona b4 i pay that and they werent even the best body shops around

 

You do realize your gonna have to pay someone to put the bedside and paint it right?

I understand your OCD but a guy who knows what they are doing can make it seemless. a bad bodyman you can tell they did the work. I hit a deer with my moms mazda tribute sometime back, took it to my bodyman and you cannot tell the car was hit and he repaired everything and only replaced what he had to (grill and a headlight) the fender, bumper, paint-you cant tell.

 

You do realize that AFTER paying the $1,500, THEN you get to pay approx. another $1,000 to get them hung on the truck and painted....Hell for that you could just fix the ones you currently have, and get the whole truck painted....And a GOOD paint job at that.....Just my .2 though...

-Wes

 

bedside r 100x easier to put on than a skin... my buddy is suppose 2 help me 2 he placed 3rd at states in the skills competition for auto body if u know what that is. he should've took 1st but it was rigged and not 2 his advantage but the 1 thing he dont like 2 do is bedsides and im painting the whole truck (JA) blue im pretty decent at painting

 

I don't anything about body work or painting but wouldn't it be easier just to find a replacement bed?

 

like i said in the 3rd post almost impossible 2 find here in PA my dads buddy runs a business sell body panel all over the country and big car show and always buying cars and parts to resale... he said he would get me one in Arizona but i been askin him for 4months now and havent seen 1 yet

 

Ford or NDp is you 2 choices for a OEM bed skin. they are 7-900 because They are the OEM side.

LMC sells OE sides for 300 but you get 300 worth of fit and thickness.

You cant just buy a 7-900 side for 300. It just does not happen

you get what you pay for.

As for putting a southern bed on. good idea. BUT typically they are 500 for a southern bed in the south. Then you have to ship it up here, another 500+. then you have to do body work and paint it. 1000+ so where did you really save.

At least if you put new FORD sides on, you will know what you have. With a used southern bed you are taking a crap shoot on what rust is hiding behind the sides.


I just did the southern bed thing on a 79 i restored. The reason being , I could NOT get OEM sides and i refused to put OE sides on. The original bed we had needed sides, inner sides, floor, and front panel.

We got a used southern arizona bed for $950 form a guy i deal with from delaware. he brought it to Carlisle Ford nationals, so no freight. There was hidden rust in the wheel wells(small but still rust), a extra fuel filler hole, various holes form tie downs and tool boxes and it had it fare share of dents needing repair. I had about 40 hours in getting the bed into prime. Then it still needed paint. There was about 3k total for the bed , labor and materials.

the bed

 

Hey Diesel Brad, nice job on restoring that '79 bed!

I had the sides on my '93 redone a number of years ago by a top notch body shop at a cost of about $1500. They cut the sides and replaced the wheel well openings, using 3M body panel adhesive in lieu of welding. I didn't like the idea but they told me that the adhesive is way better than welding. It looked perfect when done. Well, a couple of years later, the seam cracked, bubbled, rusted, popped, etc. and now is a complete total mess.

I don't know if I'll fix it again or just drive it as a rust bucket. I would not waste a single penny on putting on some Chinese made junk patch panel, however. I'd either get a southern bed or put OEM bed sides on.

The road salt in the northern states is just murder on these trucks.

 

Sorry to hear about your bad luck with the patches, But patches are just that, patches, not a fix. A whole skin is a fix