And, since I had more time to work on it, I started putting the bed strips in. I don't have the correct carriage bolts, so all these will have to come out again. But I wanted to see how it looks with the old plywood bed while saving my pennies for some nice wood planks and stakes.

And measure twice, cut once is still a good motto. For some reason, I had it in my head that the nine wood planks were all 8" wide. Seven of them are actually 7.5" wide and the two outside ones are 9.5" wide. So, I had to cut 1/2" off seven of them, and I don't know how to add 1 1/2" to the other two. I'm really glad this is temporary, because I would hate to have destroyed the two outer boards...

 

I like the shorter bed, myself. What do you mean by "the boards are temporary"?

 

Thanks Ross. I like the shorter bed too. It's plenty long enough for anything I'll ever use it for.

The wood that's on the bed is the 1/2" plywood I had on the other bed that I made from scratch. I just cut the plywood "bed" into narrow strips to use until I can afford some nice looking wood.

 

That looks fantastic. I was wondering how a bed a foot shorter would look, but it is much better than I imagined
The bad thing is you now have me looking around for an old flatbed. That seems to be a needle in a haystack around here. It never hurts to look though.

Man, your temporary bed wood looks great on there.

 

It does look great on there, Joe! The width is much closer to the standard bed than I would've thought, and being shorter it look a bit more sporty!

 

Looks good, Joe. Welcome to the Script Bed club.
Edit: When you install the new wood and strips, work from the center out. Pre-fit all the boards, strips for spacing. You can then stand inside the perimeter frame and work a lot easier than working under the truck.

 

Thanks Joe.

I decided last night to pull it all apart again to paint the edges of the "temporary" bed wood.

Good luck finding a good script bed. I looked for nearly 4 years for something local, and it's not the right one for my truck, but it looks OK.

Thanks Howard.

Compared to a 9 foot bed for the F4, it's a foot shorter and about 7 inches narrower, so it doesn't overhang the wheels. But I like how it looks, so there's that! I'm a real trend setter, you know...

Thanks Ray. I'm really happy now that I have that script bed club membership.

Yes, I figured out after fighting to reach the center strips that I had done it all wrong. When I put them back in after I repaint the boards, I'll use your suggestion and work from the middle outward.

I also discovered that the heads of several boards must be notched to fit around the front stake pockets. So, all in all this has been a good learning experience for me. I will be prepared to someday install the "pretty" wood.

 

Joe, you do realize now that you've gone with this bed, you'll find a correct F4 bed just around the corner from your house, and it's been sitting there for years.

Looking good.

 

Heh heh, well that could happen, I guess. But since Betsy is the ONLY F4 (or F5-F8) I've ever seen around here, I'm pretty sure I won't find one. Especially since I have officially stopped looking...

 

Joe, wow! it looks really good. The smaller bed should work out great for you considering how tight your garage space is....LOL (not to mention how expensive mirrors are)


You got to be careful with terminology like "temporary" when talking about these old trucks. I have several temporary things on my truck that have been there for years now with no foreseeable replacement on the horizon. I think my usage of the term "temporary" is sort of on a geologic scale.


The bed looks great
Bobby

 

Thanks Bobby!

So, you remember the fiasco of me knocking the right mirror off the car... I was hoping everyone would forget that... You should have seen me putting the car in the garage last night for the first time next to the new truck bed. It'll take a little practice.

Yeah, I called the first bed that I made temporary. Then, after a year and a half, it became the bed I would keep but had a temporary plywood deck on it. And now that plywood deck has become my new temporary bed boards. We'll see how long they remain temporary.

 

Today, while awaiting delivery from McMaster-Carr of the correct hardware to install the bed strips, I decided to repaint the temporary plywood bed boards. I wanted to seal the edges where I had cut them to size from the two large sheets I had used previously and to put a fresh coat on the tops.

Before:



During:



After:

 

Hey Joe,
What are the dimensions of your bed? I found a non ford 8' flatbed, but the dimensions don't seem quite right. 86" long and 78.5" wide
Looking at pictures of my old bed, that may be right, but I'm thinking I want something a little more narrow and longer......
Here is the one I found. It's 4.5 hours away, but my daughters car broke down very close to there and I will probably need to drive there to get her car when it is fixed. That was a scary call to get at 11:30 at night. (Haven't mentioned the bed to the wife. )
Flat Bed 8'-PRICE REDUCED

Sorry for the hijack....well not really.

 

You are not hijacking my thread.

The 8 foot script bed is 79.25" wide and 96.5" long measuring the length from the front of the forward stake pockets to the rear.

I found it fit my F4 frame length exactly. 86" would have the bed front behind the cab about a foot or so. That's actually a 7 foot bed if it's 86" long.

 

Thanks for that info.
I had gone out to my truck and measured where the 86 would end and that just won't work I don't think. This does have me thinking about width as well. The 79" width will extend out from my tires a bit. If I go all wood, I think I will have the bed just as wide as the tires....hmmm....gotta look at more pictures now.