Building your own wood bed

[ggdad1951]

thread to document building FEF's truck bed with some (hopefully) helpful hints.

save your old boards, even if in bad shape. They are very useful as templates and reference

get good quality wood and rip and plane to the proper thickness. My 4 center boards are 7 3/4" wide and the outside boards are 10 1/2". planed to thickness of 0.82"

using your old bed boards trace and cut out the wheel well indents, you might have to trim a little bit after dry fitting

test fit the outside boards and trim as needed

place all your boards and space accordingly for the bolts for the bed strips and check the back rail for proper spacing as well

use your old boards to mark when the support rails belong under the wood

align the front cross bar to the holes on the angle brace on the sides of the bed, then mark the bolt holes from the cross bar. This becomes the basis for the rest of the hole locations.

 

[ggdad1951]

Find the cross bar that lines up with holes on the angle brace on the bed side near the rear wheel well. You might have to use a clamp to pull the bed sides together to get the holes to line up between the two parts. Once aligned, mark the bolt holes. At this time also mark all the hole locations for the bolts that go in the angle braces on the sides of the bed. Also mark the hole locations on the middle boards by the front of the bed box. MAKE SURE the boards all space out properly to the holes in the cross braces!

measure the hole locations off the frame CAREFULLY! Check squareness of frame as well. Take your boards and measure out the hole spacing for the rest of the bed mounting bolts. These bolts should all line up on a line at the same distance from the edge of the board. You SHOULD have one of the measurments line up with the second cross brace holes you marked towards the rear of the bed near the wheel wells. You can take your old bed boards and lay them over the marked hole locations as a double check. The bed wood WILL change in width from cracking, warping and shrinking, but over the length they should stay close to what you need. Carefully mark all your holes with a center punch and drill out all the holes. Then using a router and a straight edge route the grooves for the bed strips, mine were 5/8" wide and a little over 1/8" deep. I made a jig to use a router bit with a follower bearing to route out the holes for the large 3" washers for the bed mounting bolts.

next step: paint (for me) or stain and lacquer

[Dave72dt]

It should be against the law to paint wood that nice, but being true to the restoration, that's what it needs to be right, and I, for one, can appreciate that.

[buds truck]

awesome thread, I will be using this for reference

[ggdad1951]

final assembly of the bed after wood is finished

Install the outside boards to true the bed sides and install the cross braces that tie to the bed sides

Install the next row of boards, then you can install the cross braces that don't tie to the bed sides

Finished bed ready to put on the frame

[52b3b Joe]

It looks too good to be real! Great work!

[Young Ed]

How and what did you paint it with? I am surprised and glad to see it still shows some of the grain. While not as nice as stain and poly it still looks good and is obviously wood.

[pflaming]

Ed, I like this as much if not better than stain. It's unique yet it is well within the classification of "factory spec". VERY NICE!!

[ggdad1951]

this is Behr's Forever Black semi-gloss exterior paint. 2 coats brushed on. Remember this is also rough cut wood so it show a bit more "character" than planed and sanded wood.

[Desotodav]

Great job on the bed boards Mark.

In the words of the great man "An old pickup will not have a high gloss cargo box floor" (Bunn Bible pg. 138). He continually stated throughout the book "the bottom of the cargo box is always painted black".

Where did you and I go wrong Hank? Maybe we're just rebels?

Desotodav

[Dave72dt]

Out of curiosity, how much did you have to pull the sides in to get the crossmember at the wheelwell to line up?

[ggdad1951]

Dave, good solid 1.5", the top is straight the bottom seems to bow out a little

Edited August 9, 2012 by ggdad1951

[ggdad1951]

lifted the bed on last ngiht and all the holes align well with the frame. Again, measure CAREFULLY and check square!

 

[HanksB3B]

Davin although we live on opposite sides of the globe, both our trucks are subject to strong sunlight. Not like Mark who needs the snow melted out of the bed for 9 months out of the year.

Hank

[Jocko_51_B3B]

I've been debating about the bed floor in my B3B, but after seeing how well yours turned out I think I'll do the same. All black looks good. Did you paint the skid strips using the same paint as the bed sides?

Edited March 26, 2018 by Jocko_51_B3B
to add a question

[Dave72dt]

bed strips were done with the same paint as the sides, base/clear, bolt heads as well.

[59bisquik]

3 hours ago, Jocko_51_B3B said:

I've been debating about the bed floor in my B3B, but after seeing how well yours turned out I think I'll do the same. All black looks good. Did you paint the skid strips using the same paint as the bed sides?

I wanted a custom look but not the typical really light colored beds many install. I used pine boards with ebony stain.

 

Edited March 27, 2018 by 59bisquik

[ggdad1951]

12 hours ago, Jocko_51_B3B said:

I've been debating about the bed floor in my B3B, but after seeing how well yours turned out I think I'll do the same. All black looks good. Did you paint the skid strips using the same paint as the bed sides?

 

what Dave said...he was my paint guy.if you want REAL DODGE strips contact Midwest Military for new ones (if yours are bad).  

[tanda62]

Really nice looking and useful descriptions.  Gonna be a while til I get to that point in my rebuild but I will search and find this thread as reference - thanks!