I recently purchased the 78' in my avatar. The front clip and tailgate are perfect, but the cab and bed are riddled with cancer. I am currently on the search for a minty vintage replacement, but if I cannot find one I am thinking of building one. Only major issue is I can't seem to find short bed options with NPD or LMC. Is there somewhere else to look?

 

From what I have seen- others are cutting down long bed sides to the short bed length. I don't know of anywhere you can buy a short bed side.

 

Kind of what I figured. I plan to take some welding classes soon so that I may be able to tackle a project like that when it comes time.

 

There is still a pretty nice cab close to me here in GA

 

Where at in Ga.?

 

Good cabs will be easier to find than a good bed.

As for the bed is your whole bed toast or just some wheel well cancer??

 

Nah, it is pretty rough. The floor, sides and bulkhead are all pretty bad. There are a bunch of solid trucks around me, but either they are in perfect shape running and driving for more then most folks make in a year, or completely destroyed.

 

Get some welding classes under ur belt and then use your truck as the practial learning experience.

For a new short box i pick up a good short bed or a whole parts truck from the late 80's-90's
and cut the bed sides off. Grab a set of bedsides from a source of ur choice and some tailgate posts from LMC. Shorten up the long bed sides to fit the short box , swap out the tailgate posts to the lmc ones and ur done.

Its a ton of work, alot of cutting, fab, welding and finish work but the end result can be amazing. Not to mention its a ton easier than finding a mint bed to replace urs.

 

Yeah, I saw stacy david from "trucks" build one from scratch for an old chev. It looked not that bad to weld the new sides on a floor and front. I'm sure it takes a long time, but how hard are you going to look for a clean short bed, I have seen a ton of them arounf me that look awesome, then you look closer and there is a 5 gallon pail of bondo in the sides.

 

Basically it is hunt one down or build my own. I figure that I will start some welding classes as soon as the new semester semester starts at the votech. Going back to school at 35 oughtta be fun. LOL. If I can find a bed before I learn to weld I will buy it, if not at least I will be able to build one.

 

I started out with a rust bucket 77 short box. I was customizing it a little so I repaired it with patch panels. About the only thing that wasn't rusted out was the tailgate and the bulkhead, which were beat to he**. Took 3 1/2" out of the inner panels to raise the floor for clearance. Filled the stake holes and side markers. It was a ton of work! It'll take some filler because it's almost impossible to weld the sides without some warping, at least for me.

As of now, I've done the cab corners and the rear door sill corners on the cab. Today I'm welding patches in the floor near the rear wall where the floor supports are. Next week new floor pans.

Getting kind of sick of grinding the welds!

Good luck with your project! The short boxes are fairly rare I think.