[gsinon]

Today's adventures in the garage....

I got out to the shop early this morning with a plan to finish the rough fab on the bed. To do what I wanted I needed to reinstall the cab first.

Kind of nice seeing it like this for the first time in more then a year.






With the cab on and both it and the bed squared to eachother it was time to address one of my biggest pet peeves with these trucks. The rounded back of the cab and the flat front of the bed. Ugh. I've seen some metal masters go all in and make a new front bed panel that is curved. And while I would love to attempt that it is beyond my skill level, or at least it is with the very basic of metal tools I have on hand.




So instead of doing all of that, I am just going to make a filler piece that will go between the top rail of the bed and the cab so it matches the arc of the cab. I started by taping some foam I had oaying around, then I used some poster board to make some templates.




With that figured out, I ran to the parts store for a couple pieces of 1.75" round exhaust pipe to use for the bed rail extensions. I got them trimmed and tacked in place.



I then trimmed back the bed side to make room for the filler panel I would need.




Using my trusty poster board, I transferred the template to some 16g sheet metal I had. I also tacked on some round 3/16 bar to the edge to give it a finished look instead of just having the metal just end.




This is the finished look. Still a lot more welding to do. Then at some point body work it all in. But you get the idea I'm after. Much better in my opinion then the first two pics.