I am under the impression that the only diffrence between the 53-56 stepsided beds and the later ones is the fender height. If so what is the height diffrence and do you notice it? Particularily on a truck thats lowered? Anyone have pics? or does it actually look better higher?

I have two beds the better one appears to have the fenders higher but couldn't really tell without a tape.

 

Gary,

My truck was painted in 1998. I did research and talked to a lot of guys. Everything I heard and read was that the beds and fenders are identical on trucks from 1953 to 1972. I found a bed and fenders in good shape on a 71 F-100. My body man did the body work, painted it and put it on my truck. He told me he had a real hard time putting the runningboards on. We did not know why. When I got the truck home and it sat in my driveway, it looked like too much of the rear wheels showed. I measured the distance from the top of the flare to the fender on that one and the same distance on my original and guess what, the fenders of the 71 bed were 2 inches higher!

Only me and experts like us can see the difference. The place you can notice it the most is where the runningboards meet the rear fenders. Look at my gallery to see for yourself.

abe

 

two inches! I was just trying to measure using the length of my finger and I would of guessed more like .5 inches

 

I will vote 2" +. It is hard to hide. I went through this same ordeal when I built mine and ended up having a sheet metal shop build me a bed.