question about bed floor

[ivorton74]

My 74 fleetside has a wood bed floor. It looks ghastly and I hate it! I want to put in a metal floor in it. I was told some fleetsides came with factory wood floors. Mine dont look factory..it looks like someone just cut some ply board and put it in there. Do I have to do anything to the bed to put in a metal floor or is it a direct fit? Also I was thinking if i cant find a good floor i can probably get some steel and make a floor and put it in there. Would that be a good idea? Which would cost more to do?

[J Knight]

A fleetside bed with a wood floor was an option on 73-79, not sure of what year they stopped but it may be worth something if its factory. It might be desirable to another squarebody fan.
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[john_p]

a factory duplicate from one of the major players will run around 800.. you can weld in diamond plate for less.. some people want nothing but factory, others love the wood, to some anything custom is better.. for price, cut a steel bed out of a parts truck.. better yet, 6 bolts, swap the bed..

[80SPORT]

The factory wood floor was quite complex ...it had planks with steel rub strips all bolted to a cross brace structure.

If you look underneath your bed you should see either the formed steel of a standard steel floor or the remains of the planks of a wood bed

It was common to screw plywood to the wood bed planks when they rotted out...but the same could be done to a steel floor.

The factory wood was only painted on the top so even on southern trucks the wood disintegrated

If you have the factory wood floor you can purchase kits to rebuild it....when done up they look spectacular

If you wanted to go to the steel bed the box sides,end gate and front panel all are bolt on items

[hatzie]

With a wood floor fleetside... is there a source for the rusted out fleetside cross sills and side-to-floor supports or is it still just the 73-79 planks with steel strips and bolts?

[ivorton74]

i was thinking of just swapping the bed. my bed has some rust on it so i just wanted to get a cleaner. but the rust is not that bad and can be fixed so i thought why not just fix the bed and swap out the wood floor. i'll try and post some pics of the bed.
@john_p that diamond sound like a great idea. i really like how those look.

[kelsfine69]

Any pics of this factory wood bed floor? I would love to convert a 87 to wood floor

[Texasupton1]

I used a split sheet of pressure treated plywood on mine, covered with diamond plate. It came out great.

[Stepper86]

A stepside so not exactly the same. The original wood was rotted out and I want to restore it with wood again. But since the guy I ordered Oak boards from is taking his time (6 months and counting) I came up with this as a temporary solution. Alu diamond plate on top of water resistant plywood.

[ivorton74]

this is what my bed looks like. theres rust around the wheel arches which isn't that bad and ofcourse u can see the bedfloor. i really hate it. its slowly falling apart. can bearly walk on it cuz it feels like im gonna fall thru lol. what would u guys do. swap floor or the whole bed?

[Stepper86]

If your bed is original wood underneath that old plywood you should get under it and have a look at the condition your cross sills, they might be rotted out as well. Then it will probably be cheaper to replace the whole bed with a steel floor one. Unless you really want to keep it factory.

[ivorton74]

its just 2 layersof plywood and its pretty shot. the cross sills look kinda rusty. i'll have to inspect the closer. there's a salvage yard in town that has a couple trucks with good beds but the ppl who own it are weird and dont even know how much they want to sell parts for. plus sometimes theres no one there. there a few good potential parts truck around here but ppl dont wanna sell em. went to check out one last year and the guy wanted to shoot us. he seemed racist too.

[john_p]

you can get cross seals from lmc or classic. as well as stock steel or wood.. one problem with the old wood beds is water stands in them,, unsealed pine with paint on the top.. surprised they lasted as lpng as they did.. i am going back with oak.. if that is sealed right and taken care of it will last 20 years.. at my age i may make it another 10..

[ray_mcavoy]

Hi ivorton74,

Without seeing what's under the plywood, its hard to say what type of floor your truck had originally. In any case, a replacement steel floor assembly will be easier to find and less expensive than restoring a factory wood bed. And it'll be a bolt-in replacement since they used the same bedsides, wheel tubs, and front bed panel.

Added: I just remembered, there is an easy way for you to check ... the wood floors have the cross sills oriented upside down as compared to a steel floor. If you look under there and see cross sills that are open on the bottom (like an upside down trough) then it was probably a factory wood floor.

For reference, here's a before and after pic of the original wood bed in my dad's 77. We kept it pretty much original except for clear polyurethane on the boards instead of paint.

Originally Posted by hatzie

With a wood floor fleetside... is there a source for the rusted out fleetside cross sills and side-to-floor supports or is it still just the 73-79 planks with steel strips and bolts?

When we did the resto on dad's truck, we used cross sills meant for a 67-72 wood floor fleetside. They're the same height as the 73-up ones, but the hole spacing (which corresponds to the plank width) is different. So we ordered some un-drilled cross sills from Mar-K and drilled our own holes using one of the original sills as a guide.

We weren't able to find the special side-to-floor pieces anywhere and they were quite rusty so we ended up having a local sheetmetal fab shop make some duplicates using the old pieces as templates. We had them make a new rear sill too (it has a notched area to receive the ends of the planks). As an alternative, we could have cut/welded a notch into a replacement rear sill meant for a steel floor.

[ivorton74]

wow now that floor looks tight. i'll be sure to check under my truck tomorrow and see what kinda cross sills they are. how much u guys think i can find a bed floor for?