Getting new(er) Bed

[zosoppp]

Ok,

So I bought a 1970 C10 Fleetside LWB and the bed is more or less a sacrificial anode at this point. Someone has welded some plate down onto the bed floor which appears to be totally rotted out from underneath. The sides aren't in much better shape and the tailgate has rust at the bottom and is somewhat bowed.

The saga so far is here.

Someone is selling the bed off of their '72 because they want to convert it to a SWB truck, the bed looks much better than the one I have, so I'm interested. It doesn't have CHEVROLET stamped into the tailgate panel, so that's a bit of a loss, and maybe that indicates it's not an original tailgate.

They're asking $1000 for it, not sure if it's worth that or not (suspect that it might well be, considering they claim it's damage/rot free). Any specific points that I should be inspecting when I go to see/get it?

The real question here, is how to retrieve the bed. I'm thinking I can remove the existing bed from my truck and put some of those magnet trailer lights on as temporary lighting and drive out to get the bed and bolt it on and drive it home (using the temporary lights if the new bed's won't easily attach. I realize that the trailer lights won't have reverse lights, but I don't plan to do a lot of backing up on the retrieval run.

I know that I'd need to have new bed bolts (any one know the size/qty needed) and the appropriate tools, and hopefully the seller can scare up a little help if needed. I don't know if he's pulled it off of his truck yet, hopefully he'd have that done before I head over...

Any opinions on the plan, legally (driving with no bed), technical issues/gotchas, problems, etc? I'm kind of new to all of this.

Thanks in advance for any/all advise comments and encouragement.