I took my bed off of my 54 this weekend with the help of my dad and wanted to ask a question. I am sending this out to the media blaster and thought that the bed would come apart in four easy to haul to the blaster pieces. It appears that the back end after removing the tailgate is welded to the cross beam tieing the two sides togeather. Is this correct or is mine just rusted togeather? Should I attempt to break the weld, or would this be a bad thing? Thanks Scottys 54
It's welded I found the same thing with my '55.1 bed. The bed sides are welded to the rear cross sill to keep the bedsides from splaying outward. Believe it or not, I used a Dremel with a cut-off wheel on it to get through the welds on either side. Yes, it's a small tool and the going was slow and I used quite a few wheels, but the really tiny cut-off wheel surgically sliced through the length of the weld nicely and makes for an easy to see match up when re-welding it. Andy
and then there were three Amazing, I've just found the same thing with my 55.1. The assembly manual showed them just being bolted up, so the welds came out with an angle grinder. I thought welding the cross member was a one-off on my truck (looking at the weld quality it wasn't done at the factory), but it must have been a common thing to do. My guess is mine was used for high loads or something as there's also a series of four holes drilled through the top of each bed side - looks like they would have held on some kind of top cover. I'm just going to bolt the bed back together when the paints done.
The rear cross member to bed sides were welded at the factory. The welds range from very decent to really lousy. Some might be explained by a new welder on the line or a girl with a really cute hiney was walking by while the bead was being run.
I have found that 80% of the spot welds can be removed without drilling or grinding. I use a metal paint scraper blade and a hammer. Similar to Eastwoods weld breaker, lots cheaper. Slide the scraper between the 2 panels and hammer away. Be careful not to let the edges of the blade pierce through the back layer of sheetmetal. Good luck.
My welds were not spot welds, but full length beads as Evan points out. They were done really nicely on mine from the factory. Couldn't even tell they were welded. Seamless, really. Guess they weren't just welded, but also smoothed so it was really hard to figure out why the heck the darn bed wouldn't come apart at first. I like the paint scraper method. I am going to try that on the bed angles as grinding off the spot welds on the first one was a real b*tch. Andy
Cutting Spot Welds The scraoed is usually too soft and bends ~ get an old broken leaf spring and grind one end to a fine chisel point , works like a charm .
Cat part# 8H8580 is like a putty knife but stronger ( gasket scraper ). Durn near indestructable. Also an old wood chisel might work. Jim
NNW's Beyond Nate's acronyms, we have NNW's (or Nate's New Words) I always think I'm going to learn a new word that I can throw out at a party or something, and then I look at the keyboard... and it makes perfect sense!
Whoops ! SORRY 'bout that ! . You all don't know I really pi$$ed off the upper management @ work where I normally post from , to-day they brought me a new (used , built from junk) computer and right there on the desktop is an eyeball icon ~ I ask the ITS guy what it is and he says it's so they can watch what I'm doing all the time..... I may not be on here as much as I used to be..... Anyway , I didn't intentionally make up a new word , I was just typing & reading absolutely as fast as I could .
Is the 54 year the only year with the welded beds? My 51 3600 bed came in parts. When I put it back together will I need to weld it to the cross sill?
!! Yes !! This is VERY important to prevent the bed from shaking & shifting itself to pieces as you travel down the road , even if you're not working it as a truck .
