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Does anyone know of some good threads on shortening a long bed to short bed specs I found jp3's thread but that's about it. Maybe I suck at using the search tool. I have heard you can cut the bed in half and weld it back togather or remove the head board move it back and fold the side back over .
I've shortened two beds but never a dentside. On both I cut about 1" back from the edge instead of trying to make a nice bend for the front corner. There are photos in my thread on my 66. A dentside only needs the front cut for the difference in wheelbase.
Shortening a dent side bed from 133" to 117" wheelbase is easier than on the bump side trucks. One cut, not two. The rear portion of the frame on a dent side is also different from the bump side. Thus, you may want to stick with bump side tutorials.
Almost all bump side long to short bed conversions approach the bed the same way. Shortening the frame is another matter. You will find a wide variety of approaches not all of which are good examples. The key to shortening the frame is what you do after cutting 16" out of it. The rear rails will be a little wider than the front rails. There may also be a slight difference in rail height. The first challenge is to weld it back up so that those welds don't fail and the second challenge is to avoid creating a non-square frame. It doesn't count as good unless you do both.
Lots of people have done this, some better than others. Do your homework thoroughly and always remember the carpenter's rule: measure twice, cut once.
Does anyone know of some good threads on shortening a long bed to short bed specs I found jp3's thread but that's about it. Maybe I suck at using the search tool. I have heard you can cut the bed in half and weld it back togather or remove the head board move it back and fold the side back over .
Almost all bump side long to short bed conversions approach the bed the same way. Shortening the frame is another matter. You will find a wide variety of approaches not all of which are good examples. The key to shortening the frame is what you do after cutting 16" out of it. The rear rails will be a little wider than the front rails. There may also be a slight difference in rail height. The first challenge is to weld it back up so that those welds don't fail and the second challenge is to avoid creating a non-square frame. It doesn't count as good unless you do both.
Lots of people have done this, some better than others. Do your homework thoroughly and always remember the carpenter's rule: measure twice, cut once.
Thanks for the advice you are correct the taper could be a challange. I see lots of different approaches some are terrible lol. still not sure I will do this but I gotta atleast research it
Originally Posted by dustyroad
please don't... Long beds are hard too find also.
not sure if I will yet, but deff thinking about it, I already cut up the front and rear of the frame for suspension swaps i have no issues cutting this old girl up.
it is yours to do with as you please, I'm just saying good metal is hard to find as you may know. well it is on the east coast for the most part.
frames are easier to find than beds.
Are you wanting to make a long bed fit on a short bed frame or shorten a long bed frame and make then make the bed match?
At some point in time we will repair our short bed by patching the exterior panels and cutting down 2 long bed floor patch panels.
Here are the bed floor panels we purchased. (one from NPD and the other from Summit) They have already been cut to length.
We contemplated buying a long bed and cutting it down as described above, but it just looks so labor intensive, plus we had a hard time finding one at a reasonable price.
