hey guys, I have a 76 highboy with a flatbed. How easy is it to get The body panels and components needed to convert it back to a regular bed?

 

There are 6 or 8 bolts that hold the bed to the frame - it just bolts right on. With a highboy having an in-cab tank, you wouldn't need to worry about hooking up a fuel filler tube unless you add an auxiliary tank. Would just be bolt it on and hook up the tail lights.

With a high boy, you have a narrower frame than many trucks of this era; when looking for beds, you could either look for a highboy bed, or you could source one off a truck with the wider frame and either make brackets or drill new holes in the bed to mount it to your narrower frame. Aside from that, it's just a matter of finding a bed that's not rusty and is the right length for your wheelbase. Start hunting around the junkyards, or looking at Craigslist for a donor truck.

 

Ok thanks. How about availability of aftermarket/re manufactured body panels? And floorboards?

 

Available are the bed floors, bed sides, head panel, tail gate, and some crossmembers.


I don't recall bed wheel wells nor some of the inner structures being available. Dollar-wise, I think you'd be better off finding and repairing a decent bed instead of starting from scratch.

 

It's also worth mentioning that other than the tailgate mounting area, later-model beds up through '96 will bolt on - swapping bedsides + tailgate towers is possible (involves some welding) if you can only find a later-model bed that's rust-free.