I haven't posted for a while because I got my butt kicked on both of the parts of the build I was working on. During engine assembly after fighting many small issues I was finally ready to install my lifters. After installing them I was turning the engine over and 1 wasn't lifting ??? Turns out the machine shop had driven one of the cam bearings in too far. After all the other issues with the build I was not too excited to start going backwards.
During this time I had found what I thought was a better bed for my truck. I purchased a complete 1967 shortbed for the bed. The paint looked like faded original paint and on first inspection didn't seem to have bondo hiding its past...... After media blasting WRONG!!
I was so angry when I got it back from blasting that I didn't even bother to prime it to stop surface rust. Between the engine problems and bed #3 being crappy also I had to take a break. Its supposed to be FUN right?

I took about a 6 week break which was during a time that I was super busy with work as well. During that time while I was cruising FTE looking at other peoples bump builds looking for hope and inspiration and crying in my beer (Beer is proof God loves us!) I saw a build with a brand new 1 piece bed floor pan. Hallelujah I had found the inspiration to get off high center! I ordered the floor and got back to work starting with removing the old floor and getting the flash rust off and getting primer on it.
In the picture above you can see the factory end piece for the connection to the back of the bed. That piece was pressed to the that scalloped shape. The new bed panel does not have shape on the end it is corrugated the entire length ( I believe it is made in a CNC break 1 bend at a time not a single piece stamping) . So to achieve the factory look I either need to butt weld the new floor to the original piece I cut off ( the part in the front ) Or I need to make 2 cuts in each corrugation then weld them together, this route would leave the bed panel with out the flat spot where the spot welds are. ( The piece behind is a part of the old bed floor) Either way requires quite a bit of welding and grinding.
Any suggestions or comments from others that have purchased this 1 piece bed floor ?

 

1 piece floor pan from Evolutionary Rides
You can see how well the corrugations match the end piece from the factory

 

I think you section in the piece you have there. It matches great.

 

I am wondering if I was your inspiration? I just bought and drove down there to get there bed floor. Joey is an awesome guy.
I did notice it wasn’t angled at the ends also but I was thinking of just slicing the ends on the sides and cutting a triangle out of the ribs to achieve the bevel of the floor.
I haven’t got to my bed yet, was going to wait til after the grand national show in a couple weeks. Looking for good wheel tubs to piece mine together or I was planning on getting bronco tubs ( which I would need four of them to fit my wheels). I was going to look at vendors down in TN in the next couple of weeks.

 

Projects are tough sometimes, but just keep working at it and it will all turn out in the end!!

 

BLKPLGE
You were the inspiration! Your build is much different than mine, but definitely a cool build!
For the bed that was on my truck when I bought it , I purchased LMC wheel houses and bed patch panels and was going to fix it. While waiting fir the parts to arrive I had the bed blasted which uncovered more work. What ever!!!! While waiting for parts i removed the wheel housings. When the parts arrived they were total *****!!!! Why sell parts that don't fit!! The wheel houses were 1" larger in length and width and were 2 piece with this horrible wrinkled seam on the side. (Which is not mentioned or shown on the web site) The bed patch panels are in small sections which in it self is a cost effective hassle and I could accept. The fact that the corrugation is not the same is asinine and un acceptable!!! Each high rib (corrugation) was 3/16 on center from matching factory. 4 ribs over was 3/4" from matching!! It also had triple tanks with BIG square hole cut in the front bed sides. The tanks were quite cute at 7 or so gallons each! Reminded me of an old motorcycle where you turn a valve to get the reserve tank.

Moving on to bed # 2 I saw a truck on face book market place that looked like it had a good bed. It was about 1 hour south of Dallas and I happened to be in Dallas with a trailer and it was on my way home that evening. It was advertised as a 1968, when I stopped it had a 1972 bed on it which has the marker light at the back of the bump. I didn't want to remove the panel with the tail light and the side marker light, so it wasn't what I needed. BUT Since I was there and had a trailer I bought the truck. It was a good price and I will eventually flip it.

Bed # 3 I saw a bed only which looked good for sale in Houston. All the pictures look promising. I go look at it (with Trailer) and I looks worthy. After blasting it looks like a chemotherapy survivor which has had its worst scars hidden by bondo😩. I am welder so I proceeded to prime it and weld up thousands of rust holes with silicon bronze Mig wire. This was very effective for rust holes. But I am not a body guy ( don't want to!) so the body guy saw the bed and the scars hidden by the bondo and started to tell my that anything is fixable but this bed would be costly.

Bed # 4 really truck # 3 1967 F100 short bed complete. I found this one online the pictures looked good and it looked like original paint so I went to look (with trailer) After driving 5 hours in freezing rain I inspect the truck. When I arrived it is fluctuating between butt cold and light snow. It looked decent and I didn't want to crawl around under the truck feeling under the bed sides for hidden dents in the mud/permafrost. The bed looked decent, the side looked good and it had the best 50 year old wheel house I had seen yet. I load it up and brought it home. When home and in decent weather it still looked like a solid start.

After the whoop *** that my engine had been giving me, when the bed got blasted and I saw what had been hidden by bondo , it was a solid kick to the *****!!! They had put bondo in the bed floor where the bed had rusted through at the back 2 bed supports. Not to mention the smashed bump on the passenger side from the cab to the center of the wheel house hiding under the bondo.

All those problems equaled crying in my beer until I saw your build and realized that it was actually possible to purchase parts for your truck which not only fit but are made in the USA.

I should have used the 1972 bed and fixed the marker lights, but it is to late now.

You said you need wheel houses. I have 2 new ****ty ones and the ones I removed from my original bed. Since you are modifying anyway these might work for you?

PM me David

 

In the last picture you can see how the new floor comes. So today I fitted the old piece to the new floor. I didn’t want just a butt weld so I decided to take a piece of the new bed and use it as a backer. The new bed floor is several inches longer than needed. They are made so that if you need to raise the bed floor to clear a 4 link or bags or what ever you have enough material to go the full length of the bed.

I cut a narrow strip from the new bed panel to use as a backer then clamped it together at the high rib and tacked on each side

View from the back side. Notice the cuts on each low rib

 

Here you can see the gap between the panels. Since the new bed matches the old exactly when you put a piece underneath only 1 side of the ribs will match up

 

After it was tacked up on the 1 side of the ribs I cut a relief cut on the other rib then clamped the 2 sides

When clamped together the gap from the cut closes up tight and both sides of the bed ribs are tight
together

 

The completed back section of the bed floor with the backer attached
This picture is looking at the edge and shows how tight the backer is after cutting and clamping

 

Old die formed back part of existing bed with backer clamped to new bed floor


Backside after welding. Good penetration into backer. Much better than trying to butt weld without a backer


After welding and grinding. While weldin I clamped a piece of angle iron to the bottom to keep it from warping

 

Set in place after cutting the hole for the goose neck
I wanted to get it ready but am not going to weld it in yet. I will prime it first so there is primer in between the seams. The dents in the wheel house are much easier to fix (beat out) without the floor in. I also need to run the plumbing for the tank fill and vent which is much easier without the floor in.
The 1 piece bed floor from Evolutionary is great!!!! I spent about 5 hours splicing the existing back part onto the new floor and another hour or 2 triple and quadruple measuring for the holes for the gooseneck hitch . But it turned out good. It is nice to have a good, productive day !

 

WOW, great work! Can't wait to see this installed.

 

Months ago I had installed a rear mount 33 gallon plastic suburban fuel tank with a Hyper fuel 58 psi in tank pump for fuel injection rated for up to 600 HP. With tank and pump installed I needed to be able to fill the tank. But I was undecided on wether to cut in a fuel door out of a dent side or bed floor fill or inner bed side fill. So after much debate I decided to PROCRASTINATE! I started working on other aspects of the build.
Now with the bed floor out and the bed on the frame was the time to decide. I could do it now when it was easy access or continue to procrastinate and make the job harder on myself.
I decided to mount the fuel fill on the inner bed wall step.

 

Plate to mount the fuel fill and the goose neck trailer plug
The plate gives the fuel fill just a little bit of an angle so the fill nozzle clears the top of the bed rail. I put the plate tight to the back bed post so it would be easy to fill with the tailgate down. You can see the filler stip in the back ground which will be welded to the plate and to the bed.