The early bed is a lot different from the later bed. What's pictured here is the early bed. It was not designed to have the bed wood exposed, but had a full sheetmetal cover over a wood subfloor and was spot welded all around. To have the exposed wood look good without cutouts, you will need to space it up, obviously.

 

Waynes bed frame appears to have been altered to accomodate the wood without build up strips. Anyone else see it that way?

 

Thanks Wayne, well put.

Excuse my ignorance with this question Wayne. When you say later bed, are we referring to a bed for a later year truck. As is in the exposed bedwood without spacing kit would require you to put a lets say a 1952 box on to the 1950 truck?

My project is using all original parts to the 1950, so to add this bedwood will always require a step up kit in a 1950 box?

 

1948 through early 1950 beds were the same , mid year 1950 the bed sides were changed to a flat panel. So when looking for parts for a 1950 you need to know if it is an early or late 1950, and early 50 fenders will not work on a late 50.

 

Hey Nigel,
You have the half moon side panels on your truck as I do as well.
You can see where we cut a small section out of the wood to go around the metal. It's covered with a piece of chrome in the final stage as Wayne Waldrep's is as well. You can't see the cutout portion.


Good luck over there. We ordered the Early '50 Bed Kit to do our's.
I understand you are trying to stay "original" - these came with a wood under structure & a metal bed floor originally - no wood bed showing on this model. So to stay original you wouldn't have a wood bed. We liked the wood bed look so that's what we went with.


Good luck over there.


Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

I would like to thank everyone who responded to my posts. This clearly answered all my questions and I now have a deeper understanding of the project. Couldn't have done it without you and this forum.

 

Just to clear this up....the OP's pics show his cross members in the wrong place and upside down from mine. The BIG arrow on the yellow truck is not the "hump" most people are talking about. I am talking about the hump in the frame for the axle. On my pic below the blue arrow IS NOT the hump....the red circles are the humps. Also the yellow truck bed framing even though you may think it looks like it goes UP at the big arrow it does not, it goes IN to clear the wheel shaped arch in the side bed panel. You can see this more clearly on my pic. All my wood lays directly on all that BED frame...not the "chassis frame." The wood slats that I mentioned above just sit down in the cross members for added support but I could have easily left them out. Hope that isn't confusing.

 

Check with Bruce Horkey, he knows all there is to know about these beds

 

Here are pictures of a later bed as I got it from a PO. Note the smooth bed sides. The PO erroneously welded the cross members to the body side flanges. The cross members should be bolted to the frame with insulating pads between the cross members and the frame. The wood sits on top of the cross members and the front panel flanges but body side panel flanges sit on top of the wood (confusing 'til you figure it out). Carriage bolts run down through the body side flanges (the holes should be square but mine have not square been for decades), then through the wood and finally through the cross members with nuts and washers holding the assemblies together on the bottom. The wood does not sit on top of the body side flanges.

One or several of my POs had welders that I often cuss as I have to fight not only the rust and the dents but their fabrication and welding errors. Thank goodness they did not take lessons from AX or the welds would be much harder to break and grind down.


Truck as I received it Oct. 15, 2011



Truck as I received it Oct. 15, 2011. Note the crossmember erroneously welded to the side flange.

 

I installed mine directly on the box frame and crossmembers. I cut out for the rail humps, then made a cover over them and screwed them down from the bottom. Not stock, but worked for me.

 

Nice wood. What is it and what did you use to protect it?

 

Another small bit of info I will add here is how I did the underside of my wood. I wanted to be able to take the whole floor out without removing one board and strip...and bolt at a time. I like having access to the rear chassis if need be. I used some small angle and put three sections on including all bolts in that row. I can now remove FOUR bolts (two on each side) and lift the whole thing out. The angle also made the bed floor very solid and flat. I initially thought about gas shocking it and making it lift up in the rear but after all the coating, sanding and polishing I was ready to be done. It would be simple to do though. Anyway, hope this helps someone.

 

Thanks, I used 1x8 pine boards stained with Minwax Great American (I think) and coated with Seakins oil. I have always liked the look of pine, and the cost is much easier on the wallet (around 85 cents per foot IIRC).

 

Dave,
Your bed looks great - that is really nice looking. Very ingenious way to cover that cut out piece on the sides. Why didn't I think of that!


Wayne - Very ingenious. I have to take off a thousand bolts to get our wood out of there. Why didn't I think of that too!.


You guys are killing me. Now I need to go find another truck to do all these neat ideas... My wife would kill me. All my money is going to colleges now anyway.


Ben in Austin
1950 F1