Please someone tell me whats the difference? I have a 55 f100, with a 57 bed and tailgate on it. I know the fenders are about 3 inches higher, but are there any other differences? My 57 bed is in awesome shape, but I wanna know if there's anything else... And rear fenders different or the same?

thx

 

You mailed. The only difference is the fenders are higher on the 57-72 beds. I have a 71 bed on my 54.

 

So how did you get the running boards to line up with the rear fenders?

 

With some twisting and some persuasion. If you look at my gallery at a pic of my truck side on you can see the boards tilt upward towards the rear fender. Only FTE members could probably realize they aren't right.

 

The fenders mount bolts are about an inch higher on the 57and up vrs the 53-56. I ran into the same problem with the running boards on my 53 when I bought a new factory bed in 1979. My running boards ran uphill towards the rear when I installed them. At the time I did not know why, so I fabricated tapered shims to put between the running board mounts and the running boards. Abe was right, only a FTE expert would probably notice. I learned through this forum a few years back about the differences between the bed styles. I had thought all that time that I somehow had done something wrong.

 

Can you PM me to give me more details of how your shims worked. Or give the details here so everyone can see them.

 

Abe,
What I did was snuggly bolt the front of the running board
to the front fender and the back of the running board to the back
fender position. (snug also) Make sure no one steps or puts weight
on the running board during this time. Then lay under the running
board and get a best measurement from the top of the running
board mount bracket ( Front and rear ) to the underside of the
running board. If I remember right it was about 3/4" for the rear
and about 1/2" to 5/8" for the front. I used a couple of pieces of
steel bar stock about 6" long and drilled (2) clearance holes the
same center to center dimension as the mounting holes in the
running boards for the mounting bolts to go through. This will
require longer bolts too. Because the running boards run downhill
from back to front the top of the block should have a taper to it.
At that time I used a 4" angle grinder to bevel the top of the block.
Will probably take a few tries of grinding and test fitting to get a
proper fit. Once you have a good fit, just slide them in and bolt
everything tight. That was almost 30 years ago. I have since
had a set milled for better fit. Because of the nature of the beast
both sides may be slightly different if you do it this way.
They could also be prototyped from a wood 2 x 4 to get a
good starting point , before using steel. It made for a good
solid mount to the boards.

 

I was thinking about adding a 3 " piece to the rear fender to make it fit the running board. Kinda give it a different look. Was gonna get those fender replacement patches from midfifty. When I mock it up ill post some pics