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I've got a long bed that is pretty solid other than some spots on the floor. The crossmembers are pretty solid too, so really just the spots in the floor itself. My local junkyard has a couple of beds that I can get the floor out of for free. One is a 78, but I'm unsure of the condition of it till I get everything out of the bed. What I can see looks good. The other is a 85 that looks very solid as well. I've read that these are the same floors. Just want to make sure. I've seen a couple of posts about the bed bolt holes being diferent on the later models.
Got it in a garage bay to start working this winter. It's a little worse than I was thinking, but the rust seems to mostly be contained to the bed floor.
So, After doing some grinding to see what I've got, I really need the crossmembers too. It looks like the front and rear crossmembers are very similar to the ones I'm seeing online for cheap for a 99-16 super duty. Can anyone confirm that?
I would flip it over on some saw horses and 2x4s. Each side has around 52 spot welds plus the crossmembers and front bed panel. It's a fairly easy process, it's just time consuming. Buy at least 4 harbor freight spot weld cutters
I got a bed from an 80-86 model over the weekend that has a great floor and crossmembers. I'm going to use it and the front header panel. It seems that the front crossmember bed mounting holes are roughly 32 inches apart on my original bed, and they are 35 inches on the later model bed. So I'm going to have to do some work on that. I was under the impression that the beds were a direct swap as far as mounting.
I need some suggestions on how exactly to move those. Will I need to cut the floor out over that and drill out the spot welds on the spacers?
I've been working on the bed and thought I'd post my progress. I cut the floor out of the donor bed and have been cutting out the floor from the original bed. I'm new to body work like this so it's a slow go, but I think I'm getting it. Hope I can get everythign squared back up.
