Stepside Bed Paint & Assembly Help

[Hair]

I have taken by stepside bed completely apart. I have patched-up all of the rust in the bed sides and fenders and it's all in bare metal. How should I go about doing the body work on it?

Should I try to work each piece separately and paint the bottom and inside of everything and then put it all back together and shoot the outside?

The way the bed sides and fenders are sort of flimsy I thought that I might need to bolt everything together BEFORE I did the body work, because some of that stuff well move and twist around after its bolted together.

I'm really concerned about the outer bed strips that get spot welded to the bedsides. I'm going with stainless ones. It would be best to weld them in before I start my body work, but they don't get painted. If I wait to put them on, when I do spot weld them on, it will mess up my paint. I'd like to get good paint coverage behind them too... so how should I do all of this.

I'm thinking that I will prime everything and paint only the areas that will be hidden. Then bolt it all together. Put it up on some saw horses and do the body work (sanding, bondo, blocking, etc) and paint it all as one piece.

But I still have the issue with the bedside strips. I'd like to put them on as early as possible becasue they will stiffen up the bedside a lot and the spot weld areas will have to be worked too.

Also, my bedsides and fenders were ate up with rust where they were bolted together. Is there some type of gasket that I can put in there to keep that from happening again?... or will that jsut hold water and make it worse?

Anyway, I'm sure you guys have been here many times. What is the best way to go here?

[JimKshortstep4x4]

Welding stainless to sheet metal might be a little tricky. If it were mine I would weld steel strips to the sides and then seal the edges to keep water out.

I used sealant and fender welts on my fender to bed joints after everything was painted. Strip caulk would work well also.

Jim

[Bruce88]

I’ve been concerned about the same issues with my step side bed rebuild

I talked to a body man and the body work needs to be done with the panels together then taken apart for painting. This makes it possible to get the paint into all the areas that are almost impossible with all the panels together.

As for the bed strip I’m planning on bolting my stainless steel strip on with 5/16 – 18 x 1 long button alien head SS bolts and SS self locking nuts spaced approximately every six inches along the strip (be careful when laying out the holes so not to drill them into the fender flange) most of the nuts will be hidden behind the fender. This is one option you might conceder instead of spot welding the strip in. This option also allows paint to be under the strip that is a very common area for rust to start around the spot welds.

On final assembly of the fenders recommend using fender welt