Bed Sills... Am I missing something?

[C10Slim]

So went to mount the bed to the frame today and somethings not quite right. I got 4 sills lined up but seem to be missing the third from the cab? I tried putting one of the sills across these mounts and the holes don't seem to line up. I put down the square and you can see the holes are at least an inch off. What am i mising here?

[mbgmike]

I think those were used on wood floor stepside. My truck did not even have those from the factory. Just the first set behind the cab. I had to add them for the SWB stepside. I could be wrong but thats what I think. Mine was a originally a Cab and Chassis sold to Texas Gas Company.

[C10Slim]

I thought that too but it looks like the fender stays should bolt up to a sill there. Kind of hard to see but in the 3rd pic bottom left hand corner you can see the stay sticking up with nothing to mount too.

[gimmy 64]

you need to loosely bolt cross seals to the frame then you have to twist or move bed from corner to corner to line up with holes .put bolts in and then shift bed so its in the rite place for it to line up with cab

[Chevy Fleetside]

One Cross Sill is different from the rest. It seems you don't have that differnt one. They would not be from a Stepside because the fleetsides are wider.

[Chevy Fleetside]

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/1764533299.html Look at the pictures in the add. If you look hard enough you will see how the front bolts off set eachother.

[C10Slim]

Well Crud! I don't know where I lost that one along the way. The overall length is the same just the bolt holes are spread further apart. You can tell from the pic they need to be wider, but I have searched all the vendors and they all seem to list the just the regular sills. What the heck am I missing here??

[Chevy Fleetside]

You might even have one in the wrong place. I would look at my truck but there is so much stuff in the back I dought i will be able to see it. From that picture, it looks like you can move that front one back one and the other up one. If not maybe you have a cross sill from an earlier model. I believe the 60-62 trucks had narrower frames in the rear.

[Chevy Fleetside]

one more question. Is that a long or short bed?

[creep]

It should be the cross sill with the bed side braces that support the front edges of the wheel opening. That's how my 63 longbed is anyway. I never noticed the mounts are wider there.

[Rich 5150 69]

One of the vendors that sells bed kits shows a schematic, just don`t remember who...must be an age thing....

[C10Slim]

Originally Posted by Chevy Fleetside

one more question. Is that a long or short bed?

Longbed

[Chevy Fleetside]

''

[C10Slim]

You can see in the first pic that the two bolts are off set.

The second pic: The wood bed that come with my truck. The second bolt lines up perfectly with the missing sill hole. So there has to be some sort of support that goes there. Also the fender stay must bolt to something.

The third pic: What it also wierd is you have the first bolt exposed which goes through the first sill. Then there is no hole for the bolt in the second sill. Then the third bolt is exposed but there is no sill there.

I am about to just get creative and drill my own holes, it just drives me nutts that I can't seem to figure this one out. I need to see some more pics of completed LWB beds.

[Rich 5150 69]

Maybe it was a production issue, have you tried swaping ends with the sill..?

[Sillyoldman]

It's the same as the 67-72's. There is one cross sill that is shorter than the others. I'm going to assemble the '63 bed pretty soon. Too late now but I'll mock up my parts and see if I can remember. I think the odd (short) one goes behind the rear axle since it does not mount to the frame.

[Gus63]

Had the same problem with my 63. I ended up just drilling my own holes cause I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong.

[jonzcustomshop]

here are pics of my 65 long fleet:
first rail -bolted to inside holes.
second rail- just resting in frame, no bolts.
third rail-bolted to outside holes.
there is a 4th too... it is only about an inch tall and runs right in front of the wheel tubs.
behind the axle there were 2 rails and then the rear cross sill, only the second to last rail and cross sill had bolts, the middle one just rests on the frame rail.

I do have a truck that the bedwood knocked out of, I will try to get you an upper pic....

** BTW as far as I can tell all the rails are the same except for that 4th that is not as tall... , they all have 2 holes, and are all tapped for the wheelwell supports.***

[C10Slim]

Originally Posted by jonzcustomshop

here are pics of my 65 long fleet:
first rail -bolted to inside holes.
second rail- just resting in frame, no bolts.
third rail-bolted to outside holes.
there is a 4th too... it is only about an inch tall and runs right in front of the wheel tubs.
behind the axle there were 2 rails and then the rear cross sill, only the second to last rail and cross sill had bolts, the middle one just rests on the frame rail.

I do have a truck that the bedwood knocked out of, I will try to get you an upper pic....

** BTW as far as I can tell all the rails are the same except for that 4th that is not as tall... , they all have 2 holes, and are all tapped for the wheelwell supports.***

Thanks for the pics Jon! I am starting to think I have some kinda freak truck or something. I bolted up one side just as you described. Go to the other side and I am still an inch off. Could you please do me a favor and run a tape measure or yard stick across those bolts and tell me how far apart they are?

[jonzcustomshop]

here is the top side of my 65... front, then rear, only 8 bolts holding the bed on...

[jonzcustomshop]

I just looked at my custom 60, its bed came off of a 61 gmc 3/4 4wd, and all the cross sills seem to be the same as the ones on my 65.

[jonzcustomshop]

...more devolpments...
my 61 cross sills:
all measure from the end to the first hole 16 inches, then 18 inches to the second hole.-all 5 of them.
on my 65 the first 2, and the last 2 measure 18 and 20 inches, but the sill that you are missing, and questioning, measures 17 1/4 from the end to the bolt!
so it is a different piece.

[C10Slim]

Thank the lord I am not loosing my mind!!! Can't thank you enough for taking the time to measure and give me back my sanity!

I took some measurments as well. The first pic is the frame holes you can see they are 37-3/4" or so. The second pic is one of the sills. On the widest holes they it is 35-3/4". So about a 2 inch difference.

Now I just need to find one of these wider sills or make my own.

[creep]

If I remember correctly, on my 63 longbed not all of the bed mounting bolts went through the wood. I think some of them had nuts inside the cross sills and a shorter bolt through the frame. Not entirely sure about that though.

[Chevy Fleetside]

In that last picture. It looks like the forward one would work but I can't really tell to much from that picture. Most of my bed work has been with short beds. I never really saw how the long beds were done.