As I recall we have had some discussions regarding how to repair a header panel in the bed. I have offered that one of the easiest ways to repair a dented, stretched, or otherwise nasty looking panel is to cover it with a steel insert. Well I am at a point in this current project where I was just finishing up on this bed for my 56 when I discovered that the header panel had a rather significant bow in it. I really hate to spend a lot of time straightening, filling, and block sanding big flat areas so I had Direct Sheetmetal cut a 16 ga panel to my spec and I used panel adhesive to put it in place. Pictures are always better than words so here's a couple to show you how this technique works. I am not into taking a lot of pics of the individual steps but all I did was to build a flat surface using 16 ga furring strips and then bonded the insert to them. The 2x2 box steel section at the base of the header panel was installed to raise the floor of the bed up 2 inches to accomodate the drop in the suspension...don't want the rearend pounding on the bottom of the bed wood.

 

Now that looks good! Excellent job.