I just bought an original 1950 F-1 1/2 ton. The wood in the bed is not installed but I do have the oak planks. How do you assembly the wood and are there trim strips that go on the bed sides to hold the edge boards in place?. I do have the strips that go between the boards. Are there metal strips in the front and rear of the bed or just between the boards and the edge. Thank you. Photos would be great. ALso, how well do the original vacuum operated windshield wipers work? The motor doesn't appear to be very strong.

 

Chapla
Your truck originally had a metal over wood bed. As such, there was no edge or front of bed trim pieces. Most people use 51-57(?) edge trim on the 48-50 to have a nice finished look. You also have to raise the bed up with wood risers on the crossmembers for the bed to sit level. There are pics in my gallery of my bed work.

How well do the original wipers work? Not very well at all. Never really did except at speed. Most folks opt for electric wipers as one of their first upgrades (after brakes!)

Tim

 

Tim, I saw your bed pics, looks good. I'll be doing the same thing. I saw a vendor selling a wood kit for our trucks,(expensive) converting the metal bed to wood, and pitching their "special spacers" for getting the finished height correct. I'm a good woodworker, so I'm going to build my own bed, but I was curious about the "special spacers". They look like 1x4's in your gallery. Hmmm. Anyway, it looks like you bolted the crossmembers to the truck frame through the spacers, then fastened the oak bed to the spacers. Is that what you did, or did you bolt the bed all the way through the crossmembers?
Rusty

 

Rusty
Yes, the special spacers are wood 1x3 1/2 inch blocks to raise the whole bed up. Place a bedwood board on the bed cross members next to the bedside and you will quickly understand why you have to do this--they won't fit level due to the raised bedside contours. Yes I bolted the bed thru the spacers and then thru the frame. The bolts holding down the individual bed boards will also go thru the cross members--I think. This is where my spring project picks up again. If you do not run the strip bolts thru the cross members I don't think they would grip enough to keep everything together.

On our trucks we also need to get the bedwood finish trim pieces for the later models to form a nice transition from the bedside to the bedwood. My bed is in excellent shape and just leaving a cut edge next to the bedside leaves something to be desired. Plus it will hold down the outside boards.

Hope this helps. I may have just confused you more--it's kinda tough to describe unless you've been there!

Tim

 

If you check out the ch**y box you will see an angle for the edges that is rolled the same as the bed strips and they fit very nicely against the side and the wood then just spot weld it in place.

Don

 

Click on the link below Mar-K has a lot of good information on their sight.

http://www.mar-k.com/installation_hints.html


Hope this helps
Rod 51F1