I recently bought an 05 F250 CC SB. One or more of the bed support rails is rusted and the front one (right behind the cab) is bad enough that I can move the bed up and down with my hand. I've read several threads on a few forums about replacing them and I'm wanting to do it myself.

One other thread I read on this forum (link) gives a pretty straightforward outline of how he successfully did it and even gives dimensions for the rails he made. I'm thinking of doing pretty much the same thing, but he didn't mention the gauge/thickness of metal that he used. I read about the Dorman replacement kit, but they don't mention gauge either. I'm just wondering if anybody knows what gauge is appropriate for this application.

Thanks!

 

I don't know the answer right off but you could always measure the thickness of a good one.

 

Do a search, this has been covered before with Dorman part numbers.

 

I'm not new to the internet/forums. I did search this forum and other forums before posting, but forums generally seem to have pretty crappy search functions. I searched for "bed rails" "bed supports" and a few other phrases, but wasn't able to find anything that listed material thickness. Any advice on what to search for, or do you happen to remember a thread title? Thanks.

 

I found that it was better to find a take off replacement bed.

By the time the rails have corroded, the bed floor inner fenders, and bed skin arches are all toast, at least around here.

There are a lot of Super Dutied running around with new commercial or improvised flat beds here.

 

Try this thread:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...bed-rails.html

 

I don't have my gauge handy, I'll try to check when I get back to the house to get you a more accurate number. Looking at them the stock supports are in the 14ga range, they're not very thick at all. I doubt the Dorman parts would be less than OEM, because there's not much metal involved to start with, another step down would be basically tin foil.

If you're using square tube, the price difference in 11ga and 14ga isn't all that much, you could just buy 11 and move on. I would buy the Dorman kit because for me it would be more of a hassle to order small quantity of the 4-5 different tubing sizes to not have a bunch left over.

 

I considered that, but mine is a short bed and I haven't seen any take off short beds listed for sale anywhere. The rest of the bed on mine is actually in pretty good shape. I really don't see any rust in the places you mentioned, so maybe I just got lucky in that respect.

 

That was one of the main ones I read and even bookmarked. That's the one I was talking about where he lists the dimensions of the replacements, but not the thickness/gauge of metal used.

Thanks. I appreciate you checking on that! I'll check out 11-14ga stuff.

I have a few metal/fab shops in the area, so I'm hoping I can find stuff through them. It seems like the Dorman kit is around 3x more expensive than just getting the metal to fab your own.

 

The websites I've checked are showing right around $185ish for all the pieces cut and shipped. I'm going to ask the fab shop down the block from me about possible local sources tomorrow to see if that would reduce the cost. Even $185 is still a couple hundred bucks cheaper than the Dorman kit and I'm guessing the Dorman kit isn't 11ga.

Just thought of something else too... My bed has a Line-X liner in it... Anybody know if welding the new rails to the bottom will mess that up significantly?

 

I came across a reference where someone got overspray on exhaust manifolds. Took several weeks to burn off and stank the entire time.

Welding will probably leave a mark, I think the main takeaway is to not breath the fumes if the liner does degrade.

 

haha seems like common sense to not breathe in fumes from burning chemical coatings... but you know what they say about trying to idiot-proof things...

I think my main concern is that it'll make a bubble under the liner or something and wind up rusting underneath the liner. I don't care if it looks funky, as long as it's functional and doesn't rust out.

The local fab shop told me they get their steel from a local supplier (Alro Steel), but that place is about 3 times more expensive with me picking it up myself than the websites I checked, even with delivery, so I think I'll just take the $185 route and order from discountsteel.com.

Such huge price differences from companies that all deal in commerical/industrial quantities of steel seems weird.