Dug's 1959 Fleetside

[dug224]

Originally Posted by dsraven

looks nice. are there plans for back up lights?
just looking at the bed side, you would really benefit from a stud welder. maybe sell off some of the wife's shoes or handbags to finance, haha. oh wait a minute, that just means she would have to fill that empty space with more shoes and handbags. there goes that theory, lol.

Backup lights are on the list. First idea was to buy some small round LED's and inset them below the brake lites. Other ideas may over take that.

Good idea selling off her stuff. She'll never miss any of it!

[dsraven]

hey dugg, looks good. I use flap discs all the time as well (when I get time to be in the shop....)
just wondering if you have a horizontal cross brace to keep the dimension at the tailgate hinge consistent while you play with the box sides vertically. if not you may have issues with a tight hinge. I am sure you have that covered. you have everything else covered.
nice job!

[dug224]

Originally Posted by dsraven

hey dugg, looks good. I use flap discs all the time as well (when I get time to be in the shop....)
just wondering if you have a horizontal cross brace to keep the dimension at the tailgate hinge consistent while you play with the box sides vertically. if not you may have issues with a tight hinge. I am sure you have that covered. you have everything else covered.
nice job!

Back from Atlanta so I had some truck time today. I used shims and straps to locate the tailgate in its' hole. I followed that by reinstalling the 4 factory bolts in the horizontal structural piece below the tailgate. This tightened the entire assembly up nicely which allowed me to start to determining where I was askew..............Using my long aluminum straight edges that are firmly planted against the face of the 4 tires, I determined that the '95 bed is 1/4" to 3/8" too far to the right (passenger side). Using the body line strings, I determined that the floor in the '95 bed was not parallel to the '59 body line. I already knew this but was going to try to hide it. Too big to hide so my wife Cindy and I pulled the bed off. Should have taken a picture of that! I commenced with slotting the mounting brackets to give some movement of the '95 bed towards the driver side and I built some shims to raise the back of the '95 bed to make it more parallel with the '59 body lines. While I have it apart, I'll be able to do the final weld on the bed supports, route the spare tire winch so I can access it from the back through a hole in my new sheet metal filler piece (behind the tailgate) and do some final anchoring for my gas filler tube and e-brake cables.

[dsraven]

looks like you are making good headway. just curious about the fuel filler and wondering if there is a low spot in the hose, like a P trap, or if that levels out once the box and filler neck are attached. wouldn't want fuel to sit in the hose. the fuel door location can't be in too much of a different spot than from factory by the looks of it.
do you have to buy your wife a new purse or some shoes now? she is gonna want some sort of pay back, haha.

[dug224]

OldChevysRule's Jason stopped by and helped me hoist the bed back into place. Great having a young strong Navy guy around. Thanks man!!! dug

[OldChevysRule]

Dug......I don't know about the young and strong part, but I was glad to help. It was also good to see you and the progress on your truck. Maybe you could adopt my truck, so that I can get some forward progress on it!! Haha If you ever need an extra hand, give me a ring.

[dug224]

All the slotting and shimming has paid off. The '95 bed now resides about 3/8" further to the left thanks to the slotting and the tail end is now up an other 3/4" thanks to the shimming. The bed has 8 mounting points so it took me a while to make the graduated heavy shims required to get it right.

I used my welding magnets in a horizontal position to align the '59 rear pockets with the '95 rear pockets. The smaller magnets helped me keep the beam square with the pockets while I bolted it all back together.

Note the 1"x4" wooden spacers. This is what I was having problems with. The space to the left initially took two 1"x4" spacers which meant that the '95 bed was too low in the back.

This is the stack of shims that I made which allowed me to make the top line of the '59 parallel with the '95.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work! That bed is coming out really well.

[RockinKees]

Looks great!
That's some nice engineering

[Kim57]

Nice work on the bed.
Kim

[dug224]

I got the receiver hitch hung and tacked into place. This picture is of the old TB receiver hitch mounting plates I cut off the hitch assembly.

I slipped the mounting plate into the boxed frame in the factory location so I can utilize the nuts that are already in place. The third bolt/nut that is near the end of this piece will hold it in place when the receiver hitch is removed.

Took a couple of thick plates and notched the ends and drilled holes. Mounted the plates at a 60 degree angle to clear the spare and most of the tailpipe. I'll end up cutting the end off the tailpipe and rotating it 45 degrees to clear the hitch plates.

This shot shows how the hitch is out under the bed structural beam. I'll mount the bumper off of the plates next and trim the excess plate.

[Kim57]

Looks good.
Kim

[dsraven]

looks good. isnt it great to have spare steel kicking around, just tack together and trim excess. I'm sure you have this covered, but don't forget to add steel to make the new part look like angle iron. for sideways strength. soon you will be hauling lumber like a wild man. I wish I had time to work on mine, too many projects (isn't there a name tag like that on here, haha)
keep up the good work, it inspires the rest of us, especially the pics.

[dug224]

Thanks gents. As I may have mentioned a few hundred times, I have a buddy with a welding shop and most, if not all, of the stuff I use comes his recycle dumpster. Once I get the bumper support brackets woven into this, I do plan on adding some pieces for lateral support. dug

[dsraven]

thats great about the welder buddy. also good to bounce ideas off. I love that jack. looks really handy. small package too. is it a modified trans jack maybe?

[dug224]

Originally Posted by dsraven

thats great about the welder buddy. also good to bounce ideas off. I love that jack. looks really handy. small package too. is it a modified trans jack maybe?

Actually a kitchen trash compactor my Dad re-purposed back in the 80's.

[dug224]

More small steps. Cut some angles to bolt the bumper to and clamped it all into place.



Note the gap on the left between the bumper and bed beam. I plan to adjust this gap away. I will ultimately have a piece of sheet metal bent as a filler behind the bumper so, if I can't adjust it out, it will at least be disguised.

[II_Slow]

Looking forward to seeing what you do with the custom bumper brackets - post plenty of pictures! I'll have to do my own soon. I narrowed a frame to use on my truck, so just had to narrow the receiver hitch the same, then I'll have to shim it down to the correct height to just clear the bumper.

[Kim57]

Nice fab work.
Looks good.
Kim

[RockinKees]

Nice work Dug!!

[dug224]

Thanks guys.

Finished welding the hitch/bumper support and slapped some paint on it. Ready for installation in the morning.

My horizontal welding is coming along but still has an amateurish look. I'm still having a heck of a time welding vertically and overhead. Even after watching a few YouTube videos I can't seem to get the crackle going and the molten steel rolls off the weld. Fortunately, I was able to create all horizontal welds by moving the piece around on the workbench. Any advice is appreciated.

[Nev68]

Nice work.
I want to be able to tow a trailer with mine too, so this is interesting to me.

[neverfinished52]

Awesome build Dug!

[dug224]

Thanks!

Got the bumper adjusted and the tailgate in place. To keep focused on getting the truck on the road, I decided to go back to the old school tailgate hardware. Once I decide to do the final shinny paint job in the distant future, I'll customize this setup at that time.





On to putting the top front rail cap on the bed. Brainiac Jim came up with the idea of cutting the bottom of the hollow '95 front rail and slipping it over the top of bed front sheet metal. Great idea if I can figure a way to cut it.

[Kim57]

Coming along nicely.
Kim