4-17-09: Today went ok, almost.
I started by figuring out were I wanted to locate the mounting bolts for the diamond plate cover. Then I marked them and drilled out the holes. Like everything else I do it's a little over kill. I used 10 3/8" button head bolts. They are definately bigger then what I needed and I used more then I needed. But I had these left over from when I was working on my original F100 frame. That saves me a little cash. Once I drilled all the holes in the panels ( I love my new stepped drill bits! ) , I bolted the two plates together. Then I checked again to make sure everything still fit in the cab. Everything fits good so all I have to do is weld the nuts on the back of the 10 gauge plate and the plate will be ready to weld to the cab.