Your making me jealous... i would love to have a cold beer right now.. but the army won't let us have anything better than near-beer here in the 120 degree desert.........

 

Sounds like Ford provided a place to unplug the taillights?

My wiring harness had been hacked by the previous owners so I don't remember seeing a place to unplug the lights on my harness but it may have been just wired up direct and the connectors thrown away in the past...

 

The tail lights and side marker lights had a single four prong square connector near the driver side frame rail and the tag lights were a single wire each.

 

Yup, that's exactly how mine is too. It's unmolested, which is really nice to see for a change... cause the engine bay sure isn't...

 

Another way I did it by myself, was to pick up one end and slide a 2x4 underneath and support it on a couple of oil drums. Then do the same at other end. Drive truck out from under. Cold ones or Joisey Lemonade AFTER the removal help a lot.

 

All you need to do is dress like a goofball, and have someone record it. Then post it online for others to laugh at/humiliate you. Enjoy:


‪78 Ford truck bed removal‬‏ - YouTube

 

I used a variation on this technique last summer. I put a 2'x12' through the wheelwells and jacked up the bed enough to stack cinder blocks up high enough to rest the 2'x12' on the blocks. The bed balanced almost perfectly and I was able to simply (carefully) drive the truck out from under the now suspended bed. Of course, I made the mistake of doing this in front of my garage and a week later I had to move it so I reversed the process and put it on the side of the garage like I should've done originally.

Dennis

 

I've got to remove the bed from my 79 longbed with dual tanks. For the fuel filler do I just unscrew the screws/bolts that I can access when I open the fuel doors or do I have to unscrew something from underneath?

 

Best I can remember you have two options.
1. Remove screws holding filler neck. Remove band that holds hose to underside of bed.
2. Remove hose from filler neck leaving the neck on the bed.

 

Holly rust

 

Hope they had their tetanus shots for that rust bucket.

I loosened the fuel filler door bolts, laid the doors aside, and then loosened the one phillips head screw on the right side of the fuel filler doors. Then underneath the truck, there are pipe clamps around the fuel filler hose and a bracket attached to the bed.

Remove pipe clamp, and then fuel filler hose, and the plastic housing should slump down some. I sprayed a lot of PB blaster on my bolts, and used a brass hammer and a wrench and just pounded away on the bolts.

The one bolt in the very front left of the bed, was so rusted that I did use a cut off wheel to cut the head off of that one, and then when replacing it, I got a newer star head bolt, and a speed clip that just clipped over the frame. The front gas tank makes any other kind of bolt/nut combo really impractical.

As for the bolts/nuts, they can be salvaged, mine were pretty rusted too, but I soaked them overnight in CLR, and the next day, used my angle grinder with a wire wheel, and held the bolts with vice grips and used grinder to knock remaining rust out of the threads. Most of the metal cleaned up to look like brand new bolts.

When putting them back in, I primered the bolts and painted them gloss black. Also used some anti-seize compound on the threads, so hopefully they won't rust up so badly again. This is also a good time to check the condition of the rubber fuel filler hoses, and just check out everything in general while the bed is off.

 

This is gonna be one of my upcoming projects so we will see how mine turns out!

 

Haha, yeah we have a long way to go on that truck. My Dad hauled alot of cattle in it, hence all the rust. Now that you mention it, I'm gonna check in on updating my tetanus shot...

 

I just climbed out from under my truck. I was inspecting what I need to do to remove the bed. None of the nuts/bolts have rust on them but I squirted them with Liquid Wrench anyways. I don't think breaking the bolts loose will be the challenge. I think just getting my socket on there will be. A couple look difficult to get to because they are in the frame channel and the saddle tank is right next to it. Thanks for the tips!

 

I got the bed off my truck this weekend. One of the carriage bolts closest to the tailgate I had to drill out. The one behind the drivers seat was meant to be unscrewed from the top. It has a huge phillips head on it. I ended up taking a #3 phillips bit and ground it almost half way down. Then hooked it up to my impact and it held long enough to get it unscrewed. The rest unbolted easily with a long ratchet. I unscrewed/unbolted the fuel filler from the bed but if I were to do it over I would disconnect the filler lines because the rear filler was interfered with by the splash guards. I'm going to replace the filler hoses. It's going to cost about $100. I used 4 ratchet straps and hooked them from my cherry picker to holes under the bed rail. I placed some cardboard between the bed and the cab just for protection. I removed the rear bumper and unplugged the tail light harness. The bed lifted straight off. Putting it back on should be interesting since the cherry picker is out in the dirt.