I went a local machine shop today, will have them brake my box sides, way cheaper. I'll use 1.5" tubing for top rail, a lot of welding but worth the money saved ( I hope). Hope to have bed and cab on frame before winter, spot color to add remaining parts after fit up. I've got quite a bit of body work on cab first.

Tom

 

My brother-in-law did the same thing to his 50 c***y. It turned out very nice. No reason yours should not either.

 

i have the same plan for mine, but thought about trying the tear drop shape

 

Tom,

There is a locla truck here in NM where the guy made his own bed. Its a 48-54 Chevy, he also used 1 1/2 tubing for the top rail. When he made the bedsides he contoured the top of the bedsides to follow the line of the fenders. The end product lookd very similar to an early wrecker bed but on a smaller scale.

When I built my tailgate I used 1" rigid conduit for the op and bottom rail of it. Take care on the welding, I got impatient and didn't allow it to cool enought between stictch welds and the upper rail pulled a bit....My "new" tailgate has a gentle bow in it...........lol

Take lots of pics
Bobby

 

Any idea of the cost yet?
A friend have his 55 box done the same way afew years back and I think it came out way less than $500 for a great job.

 

mine should run less then 200, if i just replace the sides, but am thinking of doing a wider bed, so that might bump it up a little, but will still be way cheaper than buying one

 

If anyone has photos of beds that you have built yourself I would be very interested in seeing those. I too am looking at replacing my bed sides at a cost of approximately $1600 CDN and the worst part about it is that there wasnt a lick of rust on the thing bu the PO warped it so bad that it would cost me more than replacement cost just to straignten the things out.

If I could get a set broke for alot less I may be interested in looking at that option.

 

Quote I got for two - sides only; to fit late 50 to 52 trucks was $160.00 Cdn

I haven't price out tubing yet; I intend to eventually rework the original bed sides, if and when I finish this project.

Tom

 

Did you give them the measurements off an original bed side for the breaks and were you just planning on welding the tube to the sheet steel?

 

When I replaced the rolled edge on my box I used 3/4" black pipe, plumbing pipe. It's twice as thick as tubing and will not dent as easy. I used a coned reamer to ream the ends out to make them look a little thinner from the ends.

 

I looked for the pics from the truck bed I described earlier, I can't find them. Maybe they are on my home computer, I'll look this evening.

When I built my tailgate I used the EMT (rigid conduit) that electricians use. The only major drawback is that it is galvanized which means you have to grind off the zinc where you want to weld. You don't want to weld on zing as its not exactly healthy and its hard to get a pretty weld out of the deal.

Bobby

 

That's why I used black plumbing pipe.

 

The dimensions are pretty simple, without the lower panels, which I'll source after market. I did get him to quote these but they require more labor therefore cost more than both sides combined. The shop I used doesnot have the capacity to roll the top rail into the one piece side, will use tubing spot welde, filled.


Bobby; good tip on the rail warp; I'll try to be patient, not in my standard bio but will make the effort.

Tom

 

I looked all over my computer and I can't find a pic of that bed box anywhere....bummer

Sorry
Bobby

 

What about stake pockets?