I'm wanting to remove the bed from my 66 f100, for some body work, paint, etc.

Is it eaisier to try and remove the bolts, or just cut them with a torch and replace them?

Are there any bushings between the bed and frame, if so anyone have the part number where I can find them?

 

I have used nut spilter, saws all, drill and torch
The torch started a fire ( wood bed) and was hard to use on the rear bolts but fast
My beds had wood blocks in the middle and steel front and back

 

Richard, I would try to remove the nuts, but would cut them below the chassis if they wont turn.


John

 

I'm about to look into this myself, going to pull the bed off a '65 at a local junkyard hopefully in the next few days.

schoo has a pretty good list of tools, I was planning on taking my electric impact wrench, some PB Blaster, a nut splitter, angle grinder with cut off wheels, reciprocating saw with metal blades, and my favorite socket set. I don't have a torch.

My plan is to try to remove the bolts with the impact wrench first. I think that would be the fastest way, either they will loosen, snap off, or if they don't budge, use the cut off wheel or reciprocating saw, whichever will fit best. It's cold and snowy here, so my goal is to get the bed removed as quickly as possible. My project is going to be removing this long bed, then cutting it down to short bed dimensions and welding it all back together, so I'm while I'm not going to needlessly damage anything...I'm not overly concerned about cutting it loose if necessary. For your project, I would suggest giving the bolts a good spray of PB Blaster once a day, for a few days, before trying to remove them. You might get lucky and they might come loose fairly easily. Mine is a '64 that had about a 1/4" thick layer of hard, dried mud all over the underside when I got it, but I've yet to run into a nut/bolt that I couldn't get to come loose with a little patience and/or penetrating oil. Which is more than I can say for some of the more modern vehicles I've worked on.

 

Have you been under the bed to see the exact location of those bolts. I have an impact wrench but when I took my bed off it was useless due to little clearance especially the middle ones.

 

The beds I removed all the bolts would turn, carriage bolts were loose and had rounded out the hole used vice grips to hold but a real pain In the as
The rear ones are a pain to get at and if the truck has a trailer hitch
I drilled from the top or burned them with torch but things catch on fire

 

i've got a '65. i ground the tops of the carriage bolts off with a side grinder.
that only leaves the two bolts under the rear edge of the bed...
and those were a bear, as they wouldn't turn, and i couldn't get to them with the grinder.

i ended up getting those with an air hammer.

 

Mine were not bad and came off with WD40 penetrating spray and a socket wrench. It is pretty tight under there, especially one in the middle the the 2 in the rear. I am not sure a impact wrench will fit. A air hammer might be a good tool.

LMC Truck sells the bed insulators which are rubber washers and the bed bolts. I did not order enough and found nearly the same washers at Home Depot. You will want something to keep the metal off metal.