wood bed

[chevyhed53]

Somewhere along its no-doubt colorful history, the wooden bed floor in my '56 stepside was replaced with a fairly heavy-gauge sheet of steel. It's welded in all around. I'm starting to plan for replacing it with pre-cut-and-drilled wood bed strips, and was hoping to get some advice, especially regarding removal of the existing steel bed floor, and how to stabilize the sides once the bed floor has been cut loose. I still have my gas tank behind the seat, so there's no issue there. If there is a previous thread on this that was helpful, please steer me to it. Thanks!