This past week was a bit of a slow one, mostly measuring, more measuring, discussing, cussing and other assorted important digressions. However, we did accomplish the following:
Welded the sides of the bed to the floor.
Welded the angle iron braces onto the ends and sides of the bed sides. These took the place of the flanges which had been formed from the single pieces of the sheet metal that made up the bed sides for each side of the bed.
Repaired the ragged hole in the left rear end "cap" (torch-cut during ithe truck's civilian use...) to match the factory-made one on the right side. We had saved both end "caps" when scrapping the old bed...
Welded the underbrace to the bottoms of the end "caps" and then welded the brace to the end of the bed.
Removed the old sheet metal from the original angle iron (which we had the foresight to save when we scrapped the original bed....
) which fits around the sides and bottom of the front of the bed and sides. We're having this important piece of angle stripped and then we'll affix new sheet metal to it and then bolt all to the front of the bed.
Propped the new tailgate into place just to see if it fit. (Whew! It did!) By the way, we saved the old tailgate and will remove all the old furniture, including the fold-down step, and install all on the new one. More to follow on this.
The replacement right-side manifold (which has the lower profile) arrived. We may get it installed next week. Depends on how excited we get about finishing the bed.......
That's all for this week!
Regards,
Jim