Bed

One of the first improvements for my truck was to replacement of all the bed wood and hardware. Actually, that decision was made in 1988 after having fallen through the rotted stock wood one Saturday. I found a reliable supplier, Mar-K in Oklahoma, and bought the unfinished oak boards, polished stainless steel strips and polished carriage bolts. When the kit arrived I opened the box and was stunned by the furniture quality oak. I carefully repacked the boards in their cardboard box and stored them for the next 10 years. It was obvious there were many things that needed to be done before installing such a nice kit.
10 years later I took the polished stainless strips to my local powder coater and had them coated with a clear urethane finish.

I found the bed wood isn't too difficult to install if you take your time. You can do it while the bed is on the truck or off. I did it with the bed off and found it had several advantages. After removing the old wood and metal strips I stood the bed on end and carefully measured the distance from corner to corner to make sure the steel part of the bed was perfectly square. (I used two 10-foot pipe clamps to square things up and hold in place.) I unpacked the wood kit from MarK and installed the pre-machined boards in their proper order. I then installed the metal strips and hardware (not too tight because you may have to shift the boards to fit correctly) and rechecked the square ness of the bed. I then transfer punched all the peripheral holes in the metal flanges of the bed sides, front bed panel and wheel tubs to the new bed wood pieces. After disassembling everything I drilled all marked holes on my drill press. I reassembled the kit (you don't have to) to make sure everything went together all right. (It did)

I then had to sand and finish the boards. That turned out to be a time consuming effort because of the number of steps required. Sanding then sealing with a quality sealer, making certain the end grain and all the drilled holes were properly sealed. I then put five coats of polyurethane finish on each board, lightly wet sanding between each coat. It took a long time because I did one side of each board (I laid them all out on extra long sawhorses) and let them dry before coating the opposite side. I let this finish cure for about 6 months before sanding the finished boards with 220 grit paper then sprayed a coat of Glasurit high solids clear coat on the top side only. After drying, I wet sanded and coated them with the final coat. I then 'color sanded' with 800 grit wet sandpaper, followed by 1200 grit to flatten the surfaces and machine buffed with a mild cutting compound and wool pad. I then carefully cleaned all the boards and machine polished with a polishing compound and foam pad. After everything on the truck bed was painted and finished I reassemble the wood kit to the bed. I then installed the bed to the truck frame by rigging a 4-strap harness to an engine hoist and carefully dropping it on the frame rails. After installing all the mounting hardware I installed the tailgate and hidden fabric tail gate straps.