Bed repair questions

[tom'sB2B]

I pulled the box off my truck and I'm working on replacing the wood, angle strips, ect.. I remove the old angle strips today and found that underneath it was heavily pitted with rust and I have a few pin holes. I'm not a welder. I'm going to have someone spot weld the angle strips on for me. What should I do to prep this area before I have the strips welded on?

I was planning on taking it down to bare metal (from the top of the angle strip all the way down to the bottom of the bed side) and hitting it with a couple of coats of rustoleum. I seems like the gap behind those angle strips is a good place for rust.

Thanks for the help

[B1B Keven]

This is a product that I'm going to try.

http://www.therustdoctor.com/

[Dave72dt]

Work whatever rust you can out, use a rust treatment product on it. At that point , I prefer to use an epoxy primer or weld-through primer and would apply to both the bed side and back side of the new angle strips. then scratch the paint out of the holes where the plug welds go, weld them on.

Any rust pits above or below the angle strip can be treated the same way and then filled to level the surface prior to applying final color.

[coW52Dodge]

On the stuff you're not going to see, I used two coats of RustBullet. I pulled the bed off and painted the rear frame, all the braces, bars, etc before putting the bed back on.

I replaced my strips with stainless steel. My originals were too far gone. You can get non-stainless strips and just paint them too.

[tom'sB2B]

I got the bed back together. I did it on the semi-cheap. I used a piece of marine grade plywood and three coats of marine laquer. I had to buy all new strips and angles. The strips are unpolished stainless and the angle strips are painted steal. Its definately not a car show job and it looks a little bit like lipstick on a pig, but did it for function.

[pflaming]

I too chose to go 'utility' on my floor. My floor strips were sound so I just painted them and as shown I used a deep almost back stain. After I stained it I rubbed off all the stain I could . Lots of ways to do things. I just noticed that this was not the finished product. The bolts are not in. I used zinc plated machine head bolts. Can't find the final picture, but the wood is the same.

Edited October 3, 2011 by pflaming

[MBF]

Nice job(s) guys!! That's the nice thing about trucks. Anything you do is an improvement over what you started with, and will make your vehicle unique. My stuff isn't show quality, and I did a lot of it on the cheap. I still have a very nice lookin' truck that gets lots of compliments, and occasionally will win a trophy (which I could care less about). I came home from a cruise-in this past Friday thinkin' how much I really enjoy this old truck-even with some dents and quirks. Mike

[B1B Keven]

I got the bed back together. I did it on the semi-cheap. I used a piece of marine grade plywood and three coats of marine lacquer. I had to buy all new strips and angles. The strips are unpolished stainless and the angle strips are painted steal. Its definitely not a car show job and it looks a little bit like lipstick on a pig' date=' but did it for function.[/quote']

Looks great. I did the same thing years ago.

[John-T-53]

All the pics below look good. This is on my to do list for next year...I'm going to use solid planks but maybe paint them black for a utility look.

Right now the bed is "floating" and held on by just the fenders and bumper. It's slowly tweaking everything as the bed shifts and raises up when I go over bumps. Not good.

[Brent B3B]

do the angle strips keep the side panels straight? i have several sets of these sides and the panels seem to "cave out" in the center of the sides that have the worst angle strips

 

 vs. at the stake pocket on the inside  

 

(bed sides are standing on end in photos  ) 

 

unfortunate for me the side panels that would be the straightest that has the best angle strips has the worst top rails   

[Merle Coggins]

I don't believe they offer any structural support that way. They only support the side panels on top of the bed boards. They are fairly easy to bent to square them up to the vertical sides.

[ggdad1951]

as Merle said, they don't keep things straight.  My bed was bowed out about 3-4 inches and had to be clamped in.

[48Dodger]

The bed side get pulled outward by the weight of of the fenders. High side beds suffer more than low side beds.

As the bolts wear in the running board/fender connection, the fenders start a downward travel...taking the sides with them.

 

The ends of the bed are "supported" by the tailgate being hooked to the sides.

The corner braces that are inside the stake pockets (rear), reach up around half way and offer more support. If the bolts to these brackets are missing or weak, again the sides will get pulled outward.

 

The worst problem is the actually stretching of the flat areas of the bed sides. Say, the previous owner took the running boards off....or the bolts are missing or broke....any number of these problems, not to mention the flange on the fender itself cracking and losing hold of the bolt.....can lead to warpage. 

 

Back in the day, farmers (or the equivalent) would add homemade wrap around bumpers with braces to support the sides of the truck bed.

 

I used the heat shrinking method on both driver and passenger side of my truck bed. When I finished and did the assembly, I bolted up the running board and made sure the mounting holes were level, then fine tuned the corner brakets. 

 

48D

[Don Coatney]

48dodger, on 21 Jan 2015 - 03:42 AM, said:48dodger, on 21 Jan 2015 - 03:42 AM, said:

 

Back in the day, farmers (or the equivalent) 

48D

 

What is the equivalent?  I Googled it and found nothing??

[48Dodger]

What is the equivalent?  I Googled it and found nothing??

 

Rancher, Cowboy, Grower, Producer, Cultivator, Dairyman, Cropper, Agriculturist, Sower, Feeder, Horticulturist, Cattleman, Shepard.....lol.

 

48Rancher

[ggdad1951]

The bed side get pulled outward by the weight of of the fenders. High side beds suffer more than low side beds.

As the bolts wear in the running board/fender connection, the fenders start a downward travel...taking the sides with them.

 

The ends of the bed are "supported" by the tailgate being hooked to the sides.

The corner braces that are inside the stake pockets (rear), reach up around half way and offer more support. If the bolts to these brackets are missing or weak, again the sides will get pulled outward.

 

The worst problem is the actually stretching of the flat areas of the bed sides. Say, the previous owner took the running boards off....or the bolts are missing or broke....any number of these problems, not to mention the flange on the fender itself cracking and losing hold of the bolt.....can lead to warpage. 

 

Back in the day, farmers (or the equivalent) would add homemade wrap around bumpers with braces to support the sides of the truck bed.

 

I used the heat shrinking method on both driver and passenger side of my truck bed. When I finished and did the assembly, I bolted up the running board and made sure the mounting holes were level, then fine tuned the corner brakets. 

 

48D

 

also BIG pieces of steel tend to NOT want to be flat, even with some shape given to them.

[48Dodger]

also BIG pieces of steel tend to NOT want to be flat, even with some shape given to them.

 

True, which I believe is why modern beds got the inside wall treatment.....structual support.

 

48D

[Dave72dt]

May have been for cosmetic reasons too. You could ding up the inside panel and the outside panel remains undamaged.

[Brent B3B]

holly bedsides batman! that explains the god awful rear bumper! so is it recommended to assemble the bed and fenders and then work it over? or leave it in sections, work them over, then assemble?

 

Mark, my pea brain can't visualize the clamp to bring the sides in....

[ggdad1951]

here is the thread I did on doing your own wood bed.  May or may not prove helpful.  But I just used wood working bar clamps to pull the sides into the proper location.  My bed we worked as individual parts, but it also was in pretty decent shape, right Dave?  Simplest thing to remember is to measure measure measure before drilling/cutting.

 

http://p15-d24.com/topic/30202-building-your-own-wood-bed/?hl=wood

[Dave72dt]

As I recall, one side was warped worse than the other and the top rail locked a lot of it in. Without a really big press, it's extremely difficult to straighten that portion of the bed side. The angle irons get stretched when they're spot welded on to the sides and I think there was some bow in the sides when originally stamped. My sides were straight when I replaced the angle on my bed and found some bow in them after plug welding them on. I would expect the same or more on a 9 foot side. The top rail, I think driver's side, held much of the bow of the entire side locked and required some judicious use of a cut off wheel to allow the side to go back to straight. I think an attempt at pressing the side straight was done previously with limited success. Lots of shrinking to bring the stamped portions back to straight.

Yes, for a working farm truck, pretty decent shape. The inevitable dings were there, not numerous, but there. The entire truck was really in very good condition for it's age, location and prior use. It could have easily been left as a survivor. This way it's an excellent example of how they looked to a customer years ago walking onto a sales lot.