[99 to Life]

12-27 Well I haven't been able to work on the truck for a couple weeks. been working on garage again, started my work bench and got my welder wired up. Need my cart that is on back order and need to wire up and extension cord for it. But am able to weld a few areas, such as the bed I was working on. Like my last build, I made bed mounts before I worked on front of truck. Dunno why but just seems to be my thing. So I got the bed leveled front to back, side to side (though I might put a slight rake to the back now) anyway, for the front of the bed I made this mount so you can just run some bolts into this mount. I just have the mount tacked in as of right now.

For the rear, there is whats called a rear cross sill that bolts your bedside together. it has tabs on each end that are nice for mounting and supporting the bed in the back. So I just tacked some angle to my frame, sent a 5" bolt all the way down the tab. good thing is, you can still move bed forward or back if you wanted cause the tab on the cross sill is just a long bolt hole so to speak. To add some rake to the bed, I can put some washers under the angle, should push the rear of bed down half inch or however much I add. I kinda like a tail dragger look, just a little. Even when slammed, the rear of the fender sits a tad too high for my liking.

These mounts just hold the bed body in place, I'll be adding some more braces and also a track system that the bed wood will sit on. The bed wood will slide off in one piece and rest on a track that is mounted to the frame, so no weight will be put on the actual bed body.

Hoping to get engine and trans moch up in there tomorrow. Also brace up the cab a bit more and start my cab mounts. Then next weekend work on getting front fenders with inners braced up, maybe start rad support and or get working on cab floors and trans tunnel. Once I know my body is absolutely final, front to back side to side and height, I'll do running board brackets. Oh and gonna test fit driveshaft too. Very long list and PIA trying to align and level everything by yourself. Again, don't mind this rusty frame, it is all gonna get blasted and painted when I'm done with moch up.