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I tweaked my illustration a bit to show a couple different style of side railing. Wood planks on top, (along with a conceptual door logo), and metal rails on the bottom.
Opinions?
Either a rail of some kind or short stake sides. What are you going to do with the tail lights?
That there is a GOOD question. The planned cut will in fact, intersect the tail light. About the top third.
This will need to be figured out, but it will certainly NOT be a half-assed or cobbed up approach.
I've looked at the tail light housings, and about two- thirds of it is the actual bulb bucket. The top two-thirds of course!
If the tail light housing is turned upside down, it might be able to be sectioned to fit by cutting off the unused part. Of course this will require modification of the mounting points inside the fender, the lens as well as the surround trim.
It might even be do-able to cut the entire tail light area out of the fender and move it down.
There's ALWAYS a way. I reckon I'll burn that bridge before I get to it!
However, doing the flat bed thing will make a few things MUCH easier to deal with. The fuel filler for example. It can go right through the tail gate, since It will no longer need to open. Maybe a license plate recess can be put there to put the filler behind the plate.
In addition, floor panels can be hinged to open to create storage under the bed floor for stuff like the spare tire, as long as it is a narrow tire.
Anyway, this is the kind of stuff I like doing. For example, a few years back, I converted a small pop up camper into a camper/car hauler. This was done by building an entire new frame, picking tha camper up off it's underpinnings, cutting off the tongue and mounting it sideways on the front. The trailer body was just over 8 feet long, so it was legal width when I mounted it sideways! The deck was made with diamond tread steel, and the car (small car) fit there. It was great for weekends at the races, and I got a lot of interest and compliments on it. it was what I called a "Po' Boys Toy Hauler."
A short fold down tailgate might allow sliding the tire in from the back, access to the gas filler, and a small amount of storage space.
My vote is wood sides and if you plan to use it boards across the front behind the cab also.
It's been a minute or two, but the bed is nearly finished. I went with 3/4" oak plywood for the bed floor. Stained "Barn Red" on top and polyurethane sealed top and bottom, edges too.
The tail lights are cut down stockers. They came out pretty good. I'll make bezels for those soon. Getting those finished allowed the completion of the rest of the new wiring. I hadn't tested turn signals till those were done. I used a new turn signal switch and the EZWire harness had a cross reference for the Ford switch to the GM color coded turn signal bundle. It worked first time!
I bolted the fenders on by installing nut-serts into the side rails with stainless steel button head allens, and uses a foam sealing strip along the bottom, and seam sealer along the top edge. Roll-on bed liner on top of the frame rails goes over the edge about 1/2"
This bed has a storage box on the passenger side. I got the cleaned up and found door seal material at McMaster Carr.
Refinements will be done soon, but this gets it driveable and usable. That has been my goal
In the mean time, I have also straightened the front bumper, and narrowed it 2 inches....inch on each end. This tucked the ends in close to the body.
Currently I'm working on the seat upholstery. More on that as it comes together. Once that is done and I have seat belt in it, it's a driver!
