I am test fitting the bed on my 55 and noticed that the two center crossmembers do not touch the frame. Is this normal and I have to use a spacer or is something wrong somewhere else? It looks to be about an inch or so between them.

 

There's a wooden block that fits inside the cross member and extends out the bottom. The crossmember actually sits on this wooden block. Here's a picture of an original one on my bed. The amount the wood sticks out may be different on a short bed (...mine is an 8ft express).

 

Thanks so much. I will have to do something different as mine has a plate welded to the bottom of the crossmember where it, I thoght it set on the frame. But no problem that will be simple.

 

The 2 center X-Members on my 55 F100 sit directly on the frame with a rubber spacer between the welded plate and frame. A plate is welded on the menber. Spacer about 1/4" thick. There is no wooden block. Just went out into the garage to double check, Us old folks can't rely too much on memory!!

 

I think the wood floor goes between the x-mem and the bed side flange. That would be 3/4" or so.

 

Mine doesn't have any wooden blocks, just the thin rubber spacer for the center two crossmembers and a thicker spacer for the front and back mounts. I know some of the bigger trucks have wooden blocks. No expert here, just going by mine. Are you sure you're putting it all together right? There are some good pics here...

http://www.achievethought.com/f100/bedwork.htm

 

I am doing bed work this week on my '55. I consulted the experts at Mid Fifty (those girls know their stuff) BTW, did you know that "Sy" who puts all those great tips in their catalog is SYbil? Diane is also quite sharp. Anyway, I ordered the "bed insulator kit" which are 8 pcs. of flat rubber, about 1/4" thick, as FKING1 correctly said. They go under all 4 cross sills, fatter ones front and rear, skinnier ones in the center, altho when I pulled a string across my sills after installing them to check for level, I had to make some changes.

 

My 53 also has no wood blocks the cross member that sit on rubber pads and then on the frame have a front and back side to fit the angle of the frame.

 

Sounds like we've identified another "long bed/short bed" difference.

Long beds have four bed cross members, and each crossmember sits on two wooden blocks as shown.

Off thread topic, but I'm surprised there is that big a difference in the height of the bed off the frame from long to short bed trucks. I willing to bet the wood block spacers were added to the big trucks so that bigger/taller tires would fit. What do you guys think?

Here's a picture of the whole long bed setup, with the spacers circled. The right rear wood block was the only one missing on my truck.