I sort of 'inherited' this 1970 F-350 with a 9ft flareside bed. The bed was in horrible shape, basically rust and paint holding hands with only 1 or 2 pieces in salvagable condition. I have tried to find a replacement bed, but im now very discouraged and ready to give up and just scrap the whole rebuilding idea.

I have tried several suggestions from the members of FTE and while it helped me tremendously with finding other parts and pieces i needed, the hunt for that 'elusive' 9ft bed remains in effect.

Am I naive in thinking that i will ever find a replacement? Does anyone even know how rare these beds supposed to be? And if I cannot find a 9 ft bed, what other alternatives are there?

About to give up...TJDREAMS

 

That is a rare one! but don't give up. I guarantee you that somwhere in Texas, there is a rust free bed for that truck in a farm field. Put up a want add here in the FTE Classifiedsand keep an eye on ads like Autotrader and eBay.

I'll certainly keep an eye out when I'm riding through the back-roads.

Good luck!

 

You have not created your gallery so I can not see a picture of your truck.

Though the front of the bed and rear of the bed should be like any other flareside/step side. The only difference I can see is the length of the side panel. I know the rolled edges at the top of the bed might be a bit difficult in matching/fabbing, though I can not see why you could not extend a good one or build one entirely from scratch using even thicker 12 guage metal.

You can separate the front and back of the bed at the welds (some are only spots), attach the metal sides you need along with supporting cross members (3 x 3/16 C channel is a almost exact placement for the factory folded sheet metal cross members), attach your fenders and be in business. You could use pipe along the top edge or cut and weld in sections from a good bed.

The biggest thing is having good fenders, you can order those brand new in fiberglass if you want to spend the bucks.

 

thank you for your advice, i have considered the possibility of making adjustments to a regular 8 ft bed. There are just a couple problems with that. the 9ft bed was the only one made by ford that had 4 stake pockets on each side. Another is the fact that the step plate in front of the fender is also longer and the spare tire mounting is different too. I did think of buying the front bed panel and crossmembers as they indeed are the same as the 8ft bed. The bed sides are the only problem, i would have to add about 4 inches to the front of them on both sides to make up for the 135" wheelbase problem for the slight indentations of the wheelwell.

I wonder if I could just buy the 8ft bedsides without any stake pockets welded in from any supplier? I guess thats food for thought.

 

make it a shortbed fleetside... problem solved and itll look alot better