[dunce79]

My inner panels were too far gone so I decided to take them to a local fab shop and have some new ones bent up. To save a little $ I just had them cut and bend them. Figured I could cut the wheel opening and drill the holes ect to match the originals.







Primed and painted the inside of the new panel. leaving the exposed site bare metal for now. Not sure what I'm doing inside the bed just yet.



Making the square holes was interesting but I drilled the hole with a normal bit as big as possible and then used a die grinder at weird angles to make the holes square and made sure the bolts fit snug. Probably could have had the fab shop punch them out, but what fun is that? ; )










And with the inner panels plug welded back into place. Thats a wrap on the bedsides. Not pictured is some hammer/dolly work on the bed corners which were badly dented. I'm not an expert at that stuff but I think I have them good enough for body work now.

This was 6 weeks of working nearly every night after my normal job and on weekends. Usually until 11-12 at night. There were spots when I was pretty sick of it but now that they are done I'm energized to move on to fitting the bed and getting my suspension sorted out. It will be fun to see the bed on the truck for the first time and start thinking about wheels/tires/stance.