Dug's 1959 Fleetside

[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.

[dug224]

Originally Posted by 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.

Man, Jason (Oldchevysrule) and I were just discussing your diesel conversion the other day. I thought I was challenged until I saw what you did. Impressive.

Not exactly sure what the correct hitch height is. The ones I have measured are all over the place. Now that I think about it, flipping my rear bumper upside down actually helped keep the hitch higher off the ground. Your stance is higher so you should have plenty of room. I'll mostly be pulling an open 6'x10' trailer with a reasonably light load so I'm not too worried about the height. Bottom of my receiver hitch is at 14" which is several inches higher than the ones I have measured. I may end up lowering the rear of the truck an inch or two after it is finished if I'm not happy with stance so I have left a little room to go down.

[dug224]

The wife ran off to Atlanta to take care of the new grandkid so I managed a double header today.

End caps on bed are pretty bad so I decided not to use them as a reference point. I decided to mount the bumper 2.5" behind the bed beam since it is straight. One day the bed end caps will be straight and they will line up with the back of the bumper.

Screwed a couple of boards together to create the 2" spacer. Clamped the spacer to the beam and pushed the bumper tight against it for the consistent spacing. Note that once I tacked the angles that bumper bolts through, the lateral position of the bumper was fixed. All I had to worry about was vertical positioning and level.

The assembly rolled away from truck. Everything tacked but no outriggers to outside bumper bolts.

Cut and drilled a tab for the bumper. Fabricated the outriggers out of some galvanized metal I had.

Trimmed all the excess metal plates and got 80% of the welding complete. Decided to put it back on the truck to see if any of the pieces wandered off with the welding I had done.

[dug224]

Assembly back on the truck. Note the exhaust pipe is not anywhere close to the new metal. I was initially worried about having to move the tailpipe not realizing that the piece it was next to would be removed in the future.

[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

[II_Slow]

Thanks for the pics on the bumper install. I may just attach my bumper to a pipe with some tabs, then fab up some heavy brackets from the frame to the pipe. Just trying to figure out how to keep it all adjustable to optimize any alignment issues. I just finished permanently (yeah, right!) positioning and securing the bed, so bumpers need to be fitted soon. I've had them for 2+ years, they are still in unopened boxes. One good thing about a long-term build, you can always catch stuff on sale and stockpile it for later.

Yours is looking great, keep it up!

[Advanced Design]

Really enjoying your fabrication and solutions Dug....I have the same issue with welding, especially overhead. Bumping up my wire feed speed helped with overhead...and basically I work around to avoid it all I can.

[dug224]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Really enjoying your fabrication and solutions Dug....I have the same issue with welding, especially overhead. Bumping up my wire feed speed helped with overhead...and basically I work around to avoid it all I can.

Thanks. I re-watched some of the videos. One thing I misunderstood was that I should turn up the heat for overhead. When I watched the same guy on a different video, he said to turn the heat down slightly lower than if you were horizontal welding. Also suggested that I adjust the welding tip to nearly flush with the cup which I will try next time.

[dug224]

Originally Posted by II_Slow

Thanks for the pics on the bumper install. I may just attach my bumper to a pipe with some tabs, then fab up some heavy brackets from the frame to the pipe. Just trying to figure out how to keep it all adjustable to optimize any alignment issues. I just finished permanently (yeah, right!) positioning and securing the bed, so bumpers need to be fitted soon. I've had them for 2+ years, they are still in unopened boxes. One good thing about a long-term build, you can always catch stuff on sale and stockpile it for later.

Yours is looking great, keep it up!

Thanks. In my case, I have only a slight bit of adjustment vertically. I basically positioned the bumper where I needed it and built to it. Was surprised after all that welding that nothing moved and the bumper bolted right back up. I guess I could slot my vertical and lateral holes for more adjustment much like I did when I moved the bed over. Keep in mind that I am out of sequence. I would have preferred to have secured the bed first. Still waiting on my metal bender to provide those piece. As a result, I may ultimately end up with a problem that requires bumper adjusting.....or, I can leave it and just say "I designed it that way" if anybody notices a problem!!!

[dug224]

Jim's idea worked like a dream. Using the old Emmert woodworking vice I inherited from my Dad, straight edges and clamps, I secured the front bed cap and trimmed the bottom flange off using my cordless jigsaw.

Gap was a bit too wide so I spun the vice longways and squeezed it down until I closed the gap enough to create a tight friction fit. The bed cap twisted after I cut off the bottom flange, so, with help from Jim, we twisted it back to about 90% straight. The rest of the straightening will happen when I tack it into place.

The worries I had about the unnatural looking flange running under the end cap went away. The shadow created makes and imperfections disappear. Looks pretty factory to me.

Added shim to the center at the cab just to straighten up. Gap is pretty close at about 1/2" but should be fine.

Will set it permanently to the '95 bed when I get the bed sides hung. As I mentioned before, I plan on making a flange and bolting it to the top of the bedsides temporarily (semi-permanently??). I want to make the bedsides removable until I can get to the body work.