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I'm getting ready to replace the wood crossmembers in my M3 Express bed. The front is mostly gone and one of the sections between the fenders is missing as well.
Does anybody have the dimensions for the wood?
Does any shop reproduce it?
What kind of wood should I use?
Like FortyNiner said, Bruce Horkey has a cross member kit and the bed wood as well as all the hardware.
His bed wood for the Express Bed is 1" thick. Most other bed wood kits are 3/4" and sits a bit low on the back. When you try to sweep anything out, it catches on a "sill?"
I bought the bed strips from him and he was great to talk to and deal with. The only thing he didn't have is the rubber that goes between the wood and bed sides.
I bought my wood cross members from Bruce Horkey as well. Worked just fine and yes, they are made for 1" thick bed wood which is what the F2 original boards were.
For a truck sitting outside or getting wet you do not want red oak, you want white oak. An easy way to tell red from white is to suck on the end grain. if you can't suck thru it it is white. That is why red oak rots. What I saw on Bruce Horkey's website was just oak, not stating red or white. I would ask prior to ordering and do my test before using as a check. Here in the Northeast, particularly Maine where I live red oak is clearly the dominent oak species. When growing here, red oak leaves have pointy ends while white oak leaves have roundy ends. I do some boatbuilding so just white oak.
Another tip is to make sure you seal the end grain well, a good practice with white and critical with red.
I used a piece of rough sawn maple (with a coat of preservative) for the crossmembers. If you do not destroy what you have got, there is enough material there to get dimensions to make the new ones. $100 for the material is cheaper than any kind of shipping price from one of the suppliers. I also used 5/4 treated wood decking for the floor ($60); one inch thick. Henry painted his pine floors the same color as the truck, my CDN original floor was Doug Fir and is now treated and painted SPF. each to his own! M3 Floor Repair
As was commented in my last post "each to his own" . The 5/4 decking material only comes as 1x6 so the deck on both sides of the truck is "spliced" that is I took two pieces and glued them (urethane subfloor adhesive) together to make the width the same as in the original. The joint seems to be holding well as the truck probably sat outside for at least a year and this was done 5 years ago. I caulked the perimeter to the box sides with a flexible paintable sealant; this is the spot the water got in and stayed to rot out the sides and front of the box. Henry used a useless piece of piping in this spot which just made it worse. Unfortunately I shaped the wood decking to fit the original steel slide plates, do not do this until you have the new steel plates in your hot little hands as there are all kinds of shapes out there. Shouda Fixed It but I did not. There are some beautiful decks out there; just consider how you want to use the truck, put something in the back like a leaky motorcycle, drive in the rain, (the floor will get wet from below) etc. etc. I did not need the stress of having to babysit a fancy wood deck. That said some of the composite decking materials are a good alternative. Paint is single stage industrial enamel, 2 coats, brushed on.
Don, here is the bed of my 54 F100. I used oil based paint mixed to match the Meadow Green body color as it was from the factory, although the factory used the auto paint as they were painting the whole truck bed. The girl at the paint store did a great job matching the Meadow Green.
This what I have surmised. I have found no definitive proof of this. I do have pictures of survivor trucks with body color wood beds.
12-09-2016, 09:46 AM
