can a 68 long bed be cut down to fit on a short bed truck?

[luke1968c10]

I have a 1968 c10 short bed truck and my bed needs replaced. I see some long beds and step sides for sale often, but rarely ever a short bed fleetside like I need. When I do see one for sale it is priced out of my budget. My question is if I get a long bed in good shape how hard would it be to cut it down and make it look right. I was wondering about the line near the top of the bed that droops down toward the back end if it would look right and line up with a piece cut out?

[LongBox]

I think you know the problem already, that line that drops down towards the rear. Personally, I'd keep looking for a short stepside box.

[Overdriven]

There's a bunch of different threads on the board about shortening long beds, just use the search function up at the top and you'll find them. The body line is not an issue, just takes a little prying and massaging during reassembly to get it to match up.

[cdowns]

they fail to tell you most attempts end badly with lots of dumpster relics

[aod92]

It's been done a lot. Search the forums and you'll see exactly how to do it.

[luke1968c10]

Thanks guys, I'll check it out. There are three long beds around here I just need to pick out the best one.

[GR8-68]

Measure 8 3/4 from front of rear pocket then cutout 8 inches from that point, seam back together. Measure back 8 3/4 inches from front pocket and cutout 12 inches from that point and weld back together. Lfd has a great tutorial on his build thread starting on page 8. 😉
It can be done with time and patience, I am about to do one myself.

[brad_man_72]

You can buy new short fleet bedsides.

[hewittca]

As mentioned above, this has been done many many times and documented quite well on the board. I am also in the middle of a shortbed conversion, and have a few threads that I am referencing quite a lot. For my truck, I ultimately decided to go with used original GM bedsides versus shortening my longbed sides for a few reasons. As you pointed out, the body line does drop as it goes back, and although you can massage the line to get it to line up, I can still notice a slight change in slope of the body line on trucks that have been shortened this way. Also, the longbed sides have the center stake pocket and a rounded leading corner on the wheel opening (versus the square corner on the shortbed sides). Regardless, shortened longbed sides still look good and here are links to a few of my favorite conversion threads:

blakeaz33's truck. This is the most typical approach to the conversion. He does a good job of documenting the process.






Rkcrln's truck. This approach is similar to above except he had to get creative with the front cut line to eliminate the bedside fuel filler.



65standard's truck. If you want to preserve the original paint as much as possible, this is the approach to take. It does, however, require a bit more metal working skills.




I Have No Idea's truck. This approach uses a shifted cut line for the rear section to help spread out the difference in the body line and make the transition less noticeable.