Quote:
Originally Posted by 68 TT
You need to be careful tightening up the bed gap too much if you actually use the truck to haul anything or do any kind of off roading. The frame flexes quite a bit and that gap diminishes rather quickly when heavily loaded.
I would hate to see a crease in your cab from the bed rail contacting the cab under load.
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I have thought about that and plan to use the polyurethane body mounts to help thighten it a little more than the factory style rubber mounts would. I know it won't eliminate it but they should help, and I am also thinking of a way to try and stiffen the frame up a little without putting in a roll bar setup. And with it being a 2wd I plan for it to sit to low to really do any hauling other than maybe a cooler and lawn chairs, and i'm not to big on off roading.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluex
Just actually measured it with the fleet bed. On the sides at the body line it is 1", at the top on the bed front panel it is 1.5"
Mine has been like this for about 6-7 yrs now and I have not had any issues with it. I already have a crease in the cab from when I got rearended when it was still a long bed.
Heres how I did mine. I got the shortbed first, set it on the frame. The second set of holes from the tailgate matched up. I put bolts in there loosely to align it, then marked and cut the rear of the frame so it would sit flat. From there I went around measuring bed gaps on all kinds of different trucks and came up with 1 1/4 as what I wanted. I measured from the bed to the cab and came up with taking out the 14". I came 2" off the rear cab mount and made a mark. 14" from that mark I made another one. That was the section I cut out.
I know I'm going to hear crap about this, but I made straight cuts and plated the inside of the frame after it was welded back together. I have had no issues with this and I still use it as a truck every once and a while. For a few years it was my only truck and I actually used it to move to AL, drove it down there full with all my tools and truck parts. It came back to SC behind the moving truck on a trailer, but the bed was full again.
Oh and my wheelbase came out perfect at 131.5 too......
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Cool, thanks. I'm not to worried about the wheelbase measurement, cause I know that with what i'm wanting to do it will end up a little bit shorter.