Short Step cross sills and reinforcements?

[ZEKE68]

On a short step, how many cross sills and reinforcement bars should there be, and where are they set? What order. Getting ready to install a wood bed in mine and I don't know how they supposed to be. Mine had a plywood bed in it when I got it. I now have (not counting the very end sheet metal ), two thick sills in front of the axle and a thinner reinforcement bar after the axle then another thick sill before the back bed sheet metal.

[Boog]

That sounds like the same cross sill arrangement as my original short step. Here is the exploded view from LMC catalog. There is one additional cross sill for the long bed version. The bed hold down bolts go through the sills (#14) but not the reinforcement strip (#15).

[ZEKE68]

Thanks, I had looked at the LMC catalog but it says as required which didn't help me much. As I said my truck had a plywood bed when I got it with three cross sills, two in front of the axle and one in the back about 16" from the rear. It had the reinforcing strip in front of the axle on the bolt row after the second sill. Looks to me like the reinforcement bar should go behind the axle on the bolt row in front of the rear sill cross member. That would provide more equal spacing. But I am not sure how the factory did it. The shorter reinforcement bar is what I am not sure of.

[68is4me]

Their is 3 frame mounted cross sills 2 in the front 1 in the rear + your very rear cross sill and 1 reinforcement.

[ZEKE68]

Where is the one reinforcement bar mounted?

[68is4me]

Here is how they look. One of the cross sills does have a different location for the frame mounting pad. I think the one reinforcement should go right in front the back on.

So starting from the back should be the main sill, followed by another sill, then the reinforcement.

[68is4me]

Here is a pic of mine.

[ZEKE68]

Thanks, That makes sense. That's not where the PO had installed the reinforcement strip.

[68is4me]

Yah, mine was not assembled right from the PO either. The PO had another reinforcement in front of the one in the pic. So I thought ok that must be they way it goes. Put everything back together and it was a big no go. That reinforcement would bottom out on the frame before the rest of the mounts would sit on the correct pads. So I read the directions(after everything was assembled) on the wood bed kit and it says only 1 reinforcement used. Now it fits perfect.

[Zeroman]

Here is a pic of my short step box with the wood installed.

Top of the pic is the back of the truck.

The back cross sill has been modified to accommodate the rear mounted gas tank, so it looks different.

[philB]

on the short stepside bed, wood, onlu uses 3 cross stills and one support? the rear support is under the tailgate.

[zicc1835]

here is a picture of a original un-molested short step with the position of cross sills and reinforcement strip

[zicc1835]

Originally Posted by zicc1835

here is a picture of a original un-molested short step with the position of cross sills and reinforcement strip

just realized this is old post from 2018