bed angle strips

[Bob_Koch]

I removed the angle strips from the bed sides with a spot weld cutter. Getting ready to weld on new strips. Mar-K says to drill 1/4 holes on the outside of the bed and plug weld the strips on. I'm not feeling real comfortable about drilling and welding my bed sides as it took me so long to find a set of good ones.

How have you attached your angle strips? Can I put holes in the angle strips and plug weld to the side?

[DanOlson]

That's how I did mine. That was 13 years ago and they are still secure.

Dan

[Merle Coggins]

Yes you could. I plug welded mine from both sides. Some spots were easier to weld through the angle into the bed side. Others were just as easy from the outside. I don't see why you couldn't plug weld the whole thing from the inside.

I did, however, find that my welds were much stronger if I used a larger hole. Say, 5/16" - 3/8". Maybe it was my welder, or my limited welding skils, but with the 1/4" holes the weld would fill the hole so quick that the heat wouldn't penetrat into the other piece. With a larger hole it took longer to fill it in and I got better penetration.

Either way you'll need to be able to grind your welds smooth. It's all going to depend on which side will be easier to get your grinder on the welds.

Merle

[Young Ed]

Merle I suspect the ease of grinding the welds and the fact that it would be easier to smooth it out on the outside with a little body filler is where they are coming from when they say to do the outside. The weld itself doesnt care which piece is welded to which.

[billwillard]

I have not used it but the guy at the paint store told me they now have an adhesive for sheet metal that will hold panels to gether so no reason it wont work on your angles.

[Bob_Koch]

Have heard of the adhesive system for repair panels. Sounds scary to me as the weight of the bed sides rest on these angle pieces.

[Young Ed]

Bob the factory method of attaching the entire box side on my dads 2000 GMC is this adhesive. So if it works for an entire box side it would work for a bed angle. Just looks like a bead of caulk or body filler along the corner where the 2 pieces meet.

[woodscavenger]

I watched a guys door fall off on a newer style pickup that used that same "technological advanced method"

[Bob_Koch]

Ed you're wetting my appetite for the adhesive method. If I can convince myself that it works well I've saved myself a whole lot of work. Need to investigate this one further. Still sounds scary.

[Young Ed]

Bob I will tell you the other thing I found out. The special gun to apply it costs about $100. I don't recall that the glue itself was too expensive just the applicator.

[grey beard]

Those angle strips are sort of important. They are the structural membersthat hold the bed sides at the proper height, believe it or not. When you cut the old angles off of the metal sides, the sides and front bulkhead will drop down about two inches, or until they hit the frame and crossmembers. This is assuming you do this job with the bed on the chassis.

Having said all this, I found welding the new angles to the bed sides fairly easy. The hard part is gettinh the sides at exactly the right height from the fround on the chassis before you weld. Helps to have the outboard two floor boards in place before you tackle this job. It is hard to corect an error in this department once it is made. Ask me how I know . . . . . .

When the bed sides are at the correct height on the fhassis, the front spring hanger grease fittings on the rear end should be centered in the hole in the bed sides made for grease zerk accessability - a good gauge to use before welding things in place. JMHO.

[Bob_Koch]

My bed is totally dismantled so I scratched marks as to placement before I took off the angle strips. Hope this works.

By the way, ordered some of my bed parts from Mar-k today. During October they have 10% off and free shipping ($8.95 handling charge). This adds up to a little bit of savings because angle and bed strips normally ship as oversize items. So if anyone out there is planning on ordering anyway, here's a little incentive. Here's the link for the discount code: http://mar-k.com/10__off_in_october__.html

[Merle Coggins]

I got my stuff from them on a similar offer early in the spring. Saved a bunch on shipping.

When I removed my angle strips I placed some blocks up against the bottom of the angles and clamped them to the bed sides. They made a perfect template for placing the new ones in the proper place.

[DanOlson]

I just looked at receipts from back when I did my box and floor. Here are what the prices were on 8/16/96.

Bed Strips Steel $ 56

Angle Strip Steel $125

Pine Wood Bed $185

SS Bolt kit $116

Dan