I got the truck up on the lift over the weekend so I could get all of the welding done on the lower part of the bed.
First order of business was figuring out the mismatch in the rear.
It turns out that there really wasn't a problem with the new panel after all. For some reason the original bed side had a piece cut out on both sides. I am not sure the reasoning behind this, but both sides were the same.
Then I had to clean up the cuts inside the bed. The 6" that I removed from the rear of the bed fell in a place where I would have to address the recess in the panel. I probably could have made some creative cuts so I could work around the recesses, but I chose to just cut them out and weld in a patch. This might have been a bit more welding and grinding. but it wasn't bad. The other side has holes where 5th wheel wiring once was so I would have had to patch that anyway. I will get some more pics of that side as I get it done.
