Bed Wood replacement - a one man job

[jeffahart]

When I was trying to decide what color to paint my bed wood strips I perused bed wood threads for pics a few months ago to see what I liked; I noticed a few questions regarding whether the project was a one man job, and does the bed need to be removed.

So I decided to post how I did it myself with no bed removal. Just for the guys who are not sure if they are biting off too much, and maybe give them a go nudge. If you got a truck you use and need a bed wood replacement. It is a one man job and you can do it. Nothing really technical here or hard. Just a bit of encouragement since I just completed the project and it’s on my mind.
I purchased my bed wood from Classic Trucks, it’s Yellow Pine and came cut and dadoed, but did not have the holes drilled. I paid around $250 plus shipping. I good deal, it’s good wood and looks to be B-better. No knots, cupping or cracked ends.

I’ll make three posts, removal, prep, and install. I’m skipping the finish. I’ll put my two cents on that in a different thread.

Removing the Bed Wood:

I only got under the truck a couple times and once was to retrieve a dropped tool, retrieving dropped tools when you’re up in the bed is a pain(we'll fix that problem too).

Here's the process; you only need you! I did this on a long bed fleet, so if you have a step side you may not be able to rely on the sill to fender attachment to hold the rear end stable, but it should not be a problem anyway.
Work from inside the bed. Remove the old wood by starting at one side and work your way to the other. The first board will be the hardest.
Forget getting under there and spraying break free or whatever else, no need, you're going to destroy the bolts anyway.
Use a sawzall(reciprocating saw) and a 6" torch blade. I don't like grinding, too much sparks and it takes too long.
Once you get the first board busted out, you can get the blade between the wood and bed strip. The torch blade zips through those little bolts in about two seconds. If the bolt head spins freely, then clamp the head with vice grips then saw it off. I used two blades and only swapped to a second blade near the end, your results may vary based on your ability to muscle the saw and spread the wear throughout the length of the blade. Your arms and back will get exercise. You might want to consider a dust mask if you are sensitive to dust. I'm not, I use saline nasal spray at the end of a work day. But use your good judgment. The wood is old and a lot of old crap comes loose when you start the demo.

If you get to an area at the front of the bed and you can't control the saw and are worried about the woodpecker effect, then clamp the bolt head and reach underneath with your impact and zip it off. It will probably bust in half and not unthread. You could remove all the bolts using this reach under method, I prefer the sawzall, it’s easier.
If you drop your vice grips or hammer or chisel or any other tool, no need to get out of the bed. Get a telescopic magnet in the bed with you. You can reach down and go go gadget with the extended magnet.

As you move from one side to the other and get a few boards and strips out, you will be able to stand on the cross sills. If your legs are long enough, you can stand on the ground and straddle the cross sills. Once you can stand where the wood was removed the job becomes much easier! I'm just tall enough I could straddle the sills, and the truck has 4" lift.
Keep the cross sills in place while you are working. The bed will stay in place in the rear because the rear cross sill is attached to the bed fender. But the bed will dip a bit in the front when the wood is removed. If you’re worried the bed front will hit the cab, stuff a moving blanket in between them, I did not and had no issues.
Once the wood is removed cut a piece of 2x4 and run it in place of the front cross sill, and stack two smaller pieces on the ends. Clamp the wood to the frame. Then you can remove the sills. I kept the rear one attached to the fender in place. I did not paint my sills or the frame. They looked pretty good, so they were left as is.

Now to clean up the bed and prep for installation.


The bed wood to be removed


Sawzall the bolts off


You can reach under to get the bolts with an impact also. You may need to vice grip bolts you sawzall also, if they are free spinning.


wood coming out with bed wood strips.


Wood out , I left in the cross sill at the rear of the wheel well. It's attached to the inner well, so I left it in place. 2x4 holds up the front.

[jeffahart]

Bed cleanup...

I had to hammer and dolly a few dents on the wheel wells, straighten the bed front, flatten mounting flanges and paint over ugly rust. Here's that process.

After a little hammer and dolly work on the wheel well dents(no bondo, close enough is good for the wheel well) I pulled the bed front straight. Looks like someone shoved a load in too far with a forklift.
I used a pipe wrench and a 1' block of 2x4 to grab the bed front and concentrate the load. I tossed a moving blanket over the tailgate and used 5' channel iron on the outside of the tailgate and a 3’ piece of dunnage on the inside of the tailgate and clamped with C clamps for an anchor. I hooked the come along to the C clamps and pipe wrench to pull the bed front straight. I put tension on the come along bits at a time, stopping to pound a bit of the lock out with a hammer and dolly as I gradually pulled the front straight. Easy money!

I used a crescent wrench to go around the mounting flanges to bend it all back to flat. It went good and no need to hammer and dolly. You can see what I'm talking about in the pic below.

I used vinegar and water on the rust with a green scotch brite. I let it set a couple hours then cleaned with the scotch brite one more time, but with water only. I did the whole bed. Then I painted.

How I painted: Rustoleum... spray and roller combo. The white paint on my truck is coming in handy. I got to paint the bed with good old low cost(near free) Rustoleum!
I mixed the canned Rustoleum with about 4:1 turpentine. I did two coats with a roller applicator. It lays down real nice mixed with the thinner and dries real smooth. After two coats, I scotch brited again and then laid on two coats of spray on Rustoleum(it gets into the hard areas better and lays a good coat, but has that crappy spray can gritty finish). After that dried I wet sanded and laid on two more coats of a 6:1 roller application. It came out smooth and nice. Better that I thought or hoped for.
I painted the strips with the white spray Rustoleum.


Channel iron across tailgate for anchor.


Dunnage for protecting tailgate from C clamps


Pipe wrench and small 2x4 to concentrate load on bend.


Knocking on the lock as the bed front is being gradually pulled out.


Taking a cresent wrench to the areas with bent flange

[jeffahart]

Bed wood installation

I removed the temporary 2x4 from the front and put the cross sills in place. I cut 2"x2 1/2"(I think that's what it was, measure to be sure) notches in the rear side wood then I inserted the bed wood on the sides front and rear then the two long pieces around the wheel wells. Now the bed sits on the bed wood again. Note: I did not use the new rubber spacers they sell now. They did not assemble that way originally. So don’t get confused that you need them and why they were not there when you demoed. You can use them, me, I’ll prefer the good grounding.
I checked the bed for square. Mine stayed square no matter where I yanked it, so I had no issues there. I laid out all the boards and strips to double check all would fit and be where they should be when installing the wood and bolts. All looked good. It's pretty easy to see where the wood goes anyway. The pre layout is just a sanity check. You can see the holes at the bed front and rear, you just place the boards centered between those holes(the front and rear holes for the strips) I inserted and snugged all bolts that went through the cross sills and front and rear bed strip holes. I worked from driver to passenger side. I drilled the bed mounting holes as I came to the boards that needed them. I also only snugged them down. But also double checked bed for square and that it was sitting where I wanted it before snugging.

I drilled my holes 1 1/2" because that's the bit I had. So I just ran a sharp chisel around the outer edge of the hole to make it a tad bigger. I didn't want to make a trip for a bit. I also used a spade bit. It was a flat spade, and I'm pretty handy with a drill and chisel so that worked for me. You can get the specs of how to drill the offset bed mount holes off Mar-K. I won’t spend the extra verbiage here.

Once you get so much wood installed you will not be able to reach under the wood to put on nuts. You will have a problem with the bolt popping up when you try to put on the nut from underneath the truck. Since it's a one man job, here's how you hold the carriage bolts down. I used a 4' piece of wood with a 20lb sledge on top to hold the bolts down to get a nut on them from underneath.
Also, when you get in and out of the truck before the mounting bolts are tightened, use a stool and don't yank yourself in by the bedside, you will move the bed out of position!

I snugged all bolts that went through the cross sills. Then I tightened the big bed mounting bolts. Then I drilled the holes around the outer holes and installed and snugged those bolts. Then I did the center bed strip bolts that do not penetrate any cross sill.
All looked good so I got under with a ratchet long extension and tightened it all down.

done one man job!

Put down as strip of wood with weight to hold down the bolt heads, I used a 20lb sledge.


Completed wood replacement.

[72 tigger]

Great job explaining the process! The bed looks really nice- too nice to haul anything in! Thanks for sharing

[notsolo]

Nice details. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Results are Great. Did you treat the wood at all? Did you reuse bed strips? Little off topic, how about photo's of your truck looks clean and strait.

[evan396]

That looks great Jeff, great write-up.

[In The Ten Ring]

I wish my truck had a wood bed, as I could install tie downs much easier. If I ever get another truck, I want a wood bed. Thanks for the info.

*My dad made this bed floor and sides by seamlessly welding in 1/8" pieces of steel he got from his coal mine. The bed is rather perfect though.

[wshattuck]

great post! Nice wood bed!!

[jeffahart]

Thanks all,

Originally Posted by notsolo

Nice details. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Results are Great. Did you treat the wood at all? Did you reuse bed strips? Little off topic, how about photo's of your truck looks clean and strait.

I did not reuse the original strips. But I could have, they had almost no damage, believe it or not, from the sawzall. I got lazy and did not want to clean them up. So I figured since I'm getting new wood and bolts, showy strips were a reasonable expenditure.

My bed is awful, it's straight as far as line go, but it's beat(death of a thousand stings). Many years of being owned by Masons and it was on an Avocado farm(San Diego). It was worked. But form the cab up it's good. the bed will need to be replaced if I ever decide on nice paint. It's a solid California truck, I didn't even feel the need to put my hands on the frame paint the sills, There is surface rust but good for another 100 years if it stays in Los Angeles

Lastly, I treated the wood with pure tung oil. It is a bit of a patience process(hopefully to get better looks and easier maintenance in the long run). But I will do a new post regarding the oil. We can watch my wood in that post over then next few years to show how oil really fares over the long haul!

[jeffahart]

Originally Posted by In The Ten Ring

I wish my truck had a wood bed, as I could install tie downs much easier. If I ever get another truck, I want a wood bed. Thanks for the info.

*My dad made this bed floor and sides by seamlessly welding in 1/8" pieces of steel he got from his coal mine. The bed is rather perfect though.

That sounds cool. That story of your Dad making it would make me want to keep it.

[In The Ten Ring]

Originally Posted by jeffahart

That sounds cool. That story of your Dad making it would make me want to keep it.

Thanks man and yes, I will keep it just as it is. I have told myself "the bed keeps the truck from ever being "stock" so go and use aftermarket parts." YET I have bought nothing but NOS or OEM body parts.....the only aftermarket parts I have used have been things like fuel lines, rubber, lower radiator brackets*, fuel pump, etc.

*Those replacement brackets can be replaced though as I didn't rivet them in but used small bolts.

[Jose's 69]

Great write up. I just finished mine last week and did it a similar way. Sawz all cut the bolts easily. My wife helped me out by holding the bolts down so I could start them. Here's a before and after.

[GR8-68]

Beautiful work Jose

[Jose's 69]

Originally Posted by GR8-68

Beautiful work Jose

Thank you.