Quote:
Originally Posted by tinydb84
I always liked your work.
How did you go about attaching the bed floor? What modifications did you do to the bed sides for the tubs?
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Floor is spaced up 3" under all 6 OE floor supports. All spacers span the majority width of the OE floor to help spread any load (except the rear tailgate area because of that support structure). The 2 spacers just fore/aft of the rear end/tubs/notched area have tabs welded to them & are bolted to the bedsides. All 'spacers' are welded to what remains of the OE bottom floor sections F & R.
Bed -through- frame bolts were extended.
The front lip of the 'top' floor had nutserts installed @ the leading edge (the front OE bottom floor section has bolts that pass through it & thread into the front bed panel; the new top floor has bolts that pass through holes drilled in the front bed panel & thread into the nutserts).
The rear 'top' floor is welded @ the stake pocket area just like the OE bottom floor section & again along the inner bed wall in front of the stake pocket.
The inner/outer bedsides were trimmed for an additional 4" of clearance.
Nutserts were used to bolt the tubs to the inner bedside.
OE hardware attatch the tubs to the floor.
2 'relief' cuts were required for the inside tailgate skin to clear the raised floor.
All said & done, you can walk on the floor just like you can an unmodified floor. The bed can also be serviced just like OE....
Remove the front bed panel.
Unbolt the tubs.
Unbolt the center spacers.
Unbolt the bottom floor sections.
Cut the rear welds & the bedside can be removed.
The hardest part was figuring out how to keep it serviceable. Once I figured that out, it was how to coat the spacers/tubing to minimize rust staining.