Steel bed cross sill replacement

[i82much]

What's involved in replacing a few rotted cross sills on a 72 longbed with a steel floor? Is this something you can do without removing the bed?

My floor is pretty rotted in one section and has a couple of bad supports under it. I'd like to be able to repair the supports and then just lay some diamond plate over the rotted floor to give me a few years of functionality. Not looking to make a lifelong repair.

[fryed_1]

I'm going through the same. I suppose you could with the bed on but it would be a squeeze. It's not that difficult to get the bed off though... If there's enough slack in the wiring maybe you could raise it up enough to get everything under and tacked in, but again, off would make it very easy. Mine has half-dollar sized holes in the bed, maybe 8-10 or so that size or smaller. I suppose the diamond plate would look nice, but I don't think it would stop anything underneath from getting worse and unless you have the stuff laying around it could get expensive. I'm patching the holes, scuffing up and using the roll on bedliner for the bottom. Quick and easy and should give it a lot more life until I decide what direction I want to go with the bed in the long run.

[zosoppp]

Unless the rear wiring has been "replaced" somehow there should be a body/frame connection plug that you disconnect when separating the bed from the frame. The only other connection should be the bolts holding the bed to the frame (should be 8) and the ground strap.

Also that frame/bed connection plug is a great place to tap into for a trailer harness (at least a 4 wire trailer harness). They make T connectors that go in line and have a 4-wire trailer output.

[i82much]

cool, thanks guys. doesn't sound that hard!