[jrmunn]

Adam,

I did not have the space to but the bed body pieces down if they came off, so I only considered replacing it "in place." But keep in mind that the body pieces at the front (on my truck) are supported by the bed, which is supported by the steel frame pieces under it. On my truck, the rear parts of the body are supported by the heavy duty bumper that is bolted to the frame.

You can take the bed wood out, but the body needs to stay on the steel frame supports, and needs to be pinned to them to keep body panels from sliding off one side or the other. Also, you need to start by taking off the "rods" ahead and behind the rear wheel that keep the panel stiff, since the distance from the body panel to the steel support will change when the bed wood is removed.

If you want to keep the body panels "in place" and remove the frame supports for rust removal and painting, you will need to replace the steel supports with something else to hold the body up. I used two 6 foot long wood 2x4's on their side ahead of the axel bolted to the frame to hold up shorter pieces of 2x4 pinned under the side panel. I was working alone, so this can be done by one person taking out the steel supports one at a time and replacing them with the 2x4 supports and temporary spacers under the panels. All of this needs to be done one step at a time.

It is hard to give a more detailed description, since each bed is going to be a little different and how deep to get into rust removal and other repairs depends on the situation and individual decisions. You get a different perspective and information from looking down on the frame where you can see parts exposed that would be easier to work on before replacing the bed.

Getting all the bolts off can be a real challenge - some are very hard to get a wrench or socket on - and the bolts will be loose if the wood underneath is rotten. To make this even more interesting, my old rail bolts had square headed nuts that didn't fit my available sockets. The difficulty in reaching some bolts gets even worse when trying to put nuts on the new bolts.

I was lucky that my original rail bolts were rib-necked, so I could twist (break) off the old 1/4 inch bolts. Of course, the flip (unlucky) side of this was finding rib-necked bolts to replace them. The side panel bolts are larger, and needed much WD40 to get them unscrewed - I ended up borrowing a small bolt cutter to remove the ones I could reach with it. A bolt cutter could also be used to remove rail bolts if they can be lifted.

Good luck - If my experience was typical, this will be an adventure.

jrmunn