RPO E81 Fleetside Wood Floor

[ray_mcavoy]

Hi folks,

Just curious to see if anyone else here has a fleetside with the optional E81 wood floor.

I've heard that they were fairly rare and the only one I've ever seen is the one in Dad's 77 GMC. Grampa bought the truck new and ordered it with the wood floor. Here's an old pic of what was left of the original floor before we started the restoration:


Restoring this proved to be a bit of a challenge. Most of the special steel "flange" pieces that join the wood to the bedsides & wheel tubs were pretty rusty. So was the rear cross sill that (unlike the steel floor one) has a notch to hold the ends of the boards. After lots of searching, we found a sheetmetal fab shop that was able to make some really nice replacement pieces using the old rusty ones as templates. We bought the pine board kit, bed strips, etc. from MAR-K Classic Truck Parts.


Another pic of the restored bed:


And one of the truck:


Anyone else have a 73-up fleetside with a wood floor? Please post some pics.

Ray