Yeah... thanks. It is a beautiful truck, just don't need this much of one any more.

 

I have also tossed around doing a long bed flare side on a 80 - 86 truck being I have a 81 flare side now.
For me I would find 2 80-86 flare side beds as long as I had the side panels & fenders as you can no longer get them but you mostly need the 2 side panels and 2 set of running boards to make this happen.

I would use a style side long bed floor and cut the sides off this way you dont need to deal with the wood floor.
There is a seam where the style sides are mated to the floor pan. I know as I used a style side long bed floor for my short bed flare side.Yes I had to shorten the metal ribbed floor.
The flare sides bolt on top of the wood normaly and in my case bolt to the top of the metal floor pan.

Once you have the long bed floor in place take the 2nd set of side panels to make 1 set longer.
Note the side panels have a kick in where the wheel is I just dont know if you would have enough straight panel to make this happen or not as I have not looked that deep into this(yet).
There is a member in the 80 -86 area that made short bed side panels from scratch with out the wheel kick out and he said with 31x10.5x15 tires on a 4x4 the tires cleared the side panels.
So if you can find someone with a break large enough and get sheet long enough you could have them made and just need to come up with fenders.
Now if you really want this to look factory you will need to move a stake pocket to the center of the side wall and 1 at each end.
The member made the stake pockets and spot welded them to the sides.
On the made side panels the member used tubing across the top edge as he could not get the rolled edge the flare sides have.

You can get the short bed wood & metal strips, all the short bed cross members, front panel, rear sill and tail gate.
Just not the side panels or fenders and the duely are different.
Style side floor with a flare side rear sill grafted on.

Side panels & front panel bolted to the style side floor. You can also see the kick out for the wheels. I also had to weld the lips back on the side panels where they bolt to the floor.

And yes I added the rear tank as it was not an option for the 80-86 flare sides, used all factory parts.

So you can see with time and money it can be done.
Dave ----

 

^^^^ Too bad he's not working on a pre-86 flareside, No wood here.
I suppose the idea is the same.

 

More information about the 9 foot stepside beds

https://sandiego.craigslist.org/ssd/...352545110.html

 

Mine is short bed but I had front bulkhead and tailgate and fenders from 79 model so I bought 2 sheets of 18 gauge and had them bent for sides and all supports underneath are square tubing came out looking good has a 2" wood floor with stainless strips and have less than 300 in bed