Progress at last! Even if it is fairly small. Finally was able to make a run to Home Depot to get some lumber for the bed dolly. I must have good luck too, because I got EVERY SINGLE BED BOLT out without stripping the square hole in the bed. Most came out pretty easy, and any resistance was mostly just crud build up. In fact, I had a bigger fight getting the rear bumper off than I did the bed bolts! Now I just need to find a couple of strong lads or rig up something to get the bed off the truck, but it is at least loose. They say pictures are worth a thousand words, so here goes! We'll start with the most recent truck teardown pictures:
Here is the bed dolly. Simple enough, just some 2x4s and 4x4s with 175lb casters (figure 4x175 should be enough to hold the bed, I can always go bigger/heavier duty if I need). I used a paddle bit to recess the holes so the lag screw heads wouldn't touch the bed at all. The bolt heads you can see on the crossbeam 2x4s are the carriage bolts I will use to hold the bed to the dolly. The 4x4 blocks at the bottom that the casters attach to are attached to the vertical 4x4 with 3/8ths 6" lag screws, so they are super sturdy:
I also finally settled on a color for the truck. I am going to go one solid color. The color of choice is Denim Blue from Kia (ugh, Kia, but a nice color!).
Here is an example pic:
