[Portmod7]

There was wood in the bed when I got it, but it was just 1x6's laid in, and screwed to the cross sills, no bed strips at all. In that process of pulling the bed off, I learned that the only thing holding the bed to the frame was the step braces in the front of the wheel wells. Looking back, I don't see how in the world it stayed on.

Again, because I wanted a faded out driver, I didn't want "nice" wood in the bed. Before this truck, I had one just like it in high school. I had put new wood in that truck that I tried to put a nice finish on. Well, the finish did no hold up at all, and deteriorated away. I ended up rear ending a lady with that truck, and was so disgusted that I had messed the grille up (couldn't get reproductions at that time) I sold the truck to a friend of mine rather than fix it. Well, when I started working on the bed for this truck, I asked him about the wood out of the bed on the truck I sold him. He had completely disassembled my old truck, but still had the wood sitting around. So I went and got the wood, bought some new bed strips, went and got the paint on the tailgate matched and had some put in rattle cans, and put the sun faded wood in the bed of Super Blue.

The strips have nice shiny paint on them, but since I plan to use this truck as a truck and haul stuff, hopefully the strips won't be shiny and new looking for too long.