Bed Supports Between Bed and Frame
 

I have a 2000 F350 SRW Superduty and the channel shaped supports between the underside of the bed floor (spot welded to the floor) and the frame are rusted bad. Does anyone else have a truck close to the 2000 MY that had the same problem? If so, how expensive was the repair?

Mine are rusted bad as well. I'll never buy another truck that was used to "tow a boat to the lake every now and then." I going to wait until it becomes a problem; in other words, until one collapses. At that point, I plan to remove the supports and replace them with square and/or rectangular tubing.

I have the same problem with my as well, body shop quoted me $650 for the repair of the channels. The bolts are in pretty rough shape too so tack on another $300 for parts and labor for that. It may be cheaper to let it rot and replace with a new bed in the future.

I took it to a body shop several days ago for a roof repair estimate. This man has been in the body businees for years. While looking at the roof and talking, he noticed some small rust bubbles above the right rear fenderwell on the bed. I also showed him the bed channel supports. He ran both these thru his computer also for an estimate. To fix the fender well they just repalce the whole bed side and paint it, Over $1700 just for that. Also in the computer he looked up the floor pan of the bed. Those channels don't come seperate, they come as one piece with the bed floor. That is $3000 plus to fix it that way. I called my ex son-in-law who does good body work. He recommended looking for a good take-off bed. I think that's a pretty expensive fix too by the time you find a good bed and it gets repainted. He also said if the fender well rust is cut out and repaired, it will come back. The above mentioned $650 repair and $300 for bolts wouldn't be too bad, but then there's the fender well rust that will get worse. I may repair by cutting them out and replacing them with tubing or channel way. I may be more inclined to not get in a hurry and use it as is, let it continue to deteriorate and see how long it takes to get worse, and them replace the whole bed with a Bradford Built powder coated flat truck bed for about $2500 installed.

my dads 2000 is the same way horrible rotted supports, my 04 isn't bad because after my dad owning his i keep up on it as soon as i see rust or popping i grind sand etc and repaint it to try and make them last as long as possible. my buddy is a welder and said if i took the bed off my dads he would weld in new supports that i was gonna get made at the local steel company or replace with square stock. only problem is that when he welds them back in he said its gonna melt the paint on the bed floor! which isn't a big deal because my dad has a bed liner but my truck has a spray in liner so i don't know what I'm gonna do. i would just replace them with square stock though. or just get a nice used bed from down south where theres no salt!