We're ready to start the bed restoration on our '62 shortbed unibody project. Though the bed and torque box seem in pretty good good condition, they are original untouched) and are beginning to show rust....the torque box exterior has a thin layer of rust on the underside, and rust is showing were the bed meets the cab from above.

Is there an illustration or description of how the bed drains, what the basic construction is (exploded view) that someone can send or describe?

What is the best thing to do with the torque box? It doesn't seem to have any rust protection (paint, galvanizing) at all, and there is no way to tell what condition the inside of the box is. Is there a good way of sealing/protecting this? It seems like the bed drains into the torque box through the open sections of the bed floor.

Any suggestions on the best way to tackle this would be appreciated.

 

Hey what kind of resto you doing on the bed? I have a 63 unibody and just got and I need to do it to mine also. Mainly my rear bed corners are just about rusted out, and I cant find anyone that makes a replacement. was going to check on a place here about making me some but they are astronomically high on everything else they do. So kind of shopping around. If you have any suggestions please let me know. I will be getting into what you are too so if you find any good info on the torque box let me know, sorry I couldn't help

 

My truck was not very rusty but as i got into the torque box the more rust i found. Very poor design overall IMO. I got rid of mine fabbed up some rear cab mounts and they bolted thru the existing gas tank retainer holes. The 64 body mount kit fit perfectly n the bracket and the cab/bed is much stiffer than orignal.

 

looks good like to see it when done

 

Thnks unibodyslick, looks great. Our bed is in pretty good condition, so we are preferring to do what we can to preserve it and prevent rust.

Do you have any pictures of the dismantling of your bed. It'd be great to see how the bed and torque box is built, so we can figure out the best way to apply some rust prevention. Eastwood makes an internal frame product that we think could work well here.

Your pictures seem to show you kept the boxes in the front corners of the bed intact....can you take a few pictures?

 

Sorry the torque box is long gone these are dated pics. It does look like the corners are still there in the pic but if you look close you see its the plate on the B pillar that ties into the rocker. Get you a shop manual and it will have a drawing of the torque box. The Eastwood chassis spray kit works well. Good luck

 

I discovered a pretty well documented unibody bed resto (the restored truck looks great) here...

1961 Ford Uni-Body - Bodywork

it shows the basic construction of the bed.

It looks like the ford engineers planned the bed to drain through the openings in the front end of the corrugated bed and into the torque box. Since there doesn't seem to be any way to rust-proof these corrugations, my plan is to by-pass them , and am thinking of using seam sealer to seal the front edge of the bed at the cab. That way at least I can slow the rust process by preventing/reducing the moisture running in the corrugations.

I will protect the inside of the torque box with eastwood's inside frame sealer. I will create another drain path, but will still end up draining into the torque box since whatever drain will need to be at the front end of the bed.

Any other suggestions?