thanks in advance: I'm looking for ideas in rebuilding my stepside bed floor with steel. The wood is rotted. It seems pretty straightforward to do it with diamond plate. Has anyone done it and have any good ideas or words of wisdom? How heavy is the bed assembly? - John

 

When I was redoing the bed in my 53, I noticed some of the braces and the bed itself was made with the thickness of the wood in mind. I was going to use treated decking boards from lowes without doing anything to them, but found out they were too thick and a front brace on the bed would not work out correctly unless I grooved them to the factory thickness with a router.

Look at your bed and see if this might be a problem. Look through the wheelwell into the bed. Can you see the edge of the bedwood? You could on mine, and it was about 1/2" to 3/4" thick. If you put metal in the bed that is something like 1/8" thick, you might have to see if you have any problems with the bed dropping down in height that amount. This was an older bed I was working on, but I remember reading they were bascially the same from 53 to 1979. I don't know about the 80-up beds and if it would be a problem.

 

Steel, strong, rusts.

Aluminum, stronger by weight than steel, no rust, expensive to weld.

Wood, install as designed as with metal strips to hold wood in place to cover groves for expansion and contraction, lots of info on the net for pickup wood beds.

 

example:

http://www.classicheartbeat.com/bed_wood.htm

 

Why would you need to weld aluminum?