I scooted over to TN yesterday and met the guy I bought the bed from. Nice guy! His "pappy" had his 64- plain jane style which is red. The original bed on his truck was a styleside but his uncle decided to pull that(kept it!) and put on the flareside. Anyway, the styleside went back on his truck and the flareside out on the blocks for sale.
They say that a sucker is born every second and I may be that sucker in this particular situation because of the cost of this expedition. I drove 1297 miles, used a ton of gas, a full 24 hours of leave(vacation time), rented a trailer, and bought a rusted truck bed. The thing is though, for what I put down in total on the trip plus paying to have my dog walkers take care of Diesel Dawg for a day, I think it will be worth it. I have a truck bed with true history of being used, and not a thin expensive after market flareside I would have to modify to fit on my truck despite being "made for it".
After I drove the 645 miles out there, that is when Uhaul decided to change my reservation of a trailer and make it a motorcycle trailer instead of the one I asked for. We tried a couple things to get the bed inside the trailer safely- since I had to drive another 600+ Miles out of there with that thing strapped to the trailer. We came up with this redneck chariot.
I seriously drove through the night. What I hate about rest areas when you are pulling a trailer is that there is no where to park. The truckers are mandated to take their breaks, sleep and be on reset at certain times so they have to be there. The States just haven't kept up with the demands. I would pull into a hotel and get the "try this room you'd normally pay 98.00 for but for tonight you can have it for 300!" no thanks! I would try that 4 times before I said screw that! I was already back in Mary-Land by the time I found a spot to park at the service location. Which is only 200 miles from home.
I got home, walked my Diesel Dawg and went to take a nap for two hours before he was wide awake talking to the squirrels and passing trespassers on the street. (his street!)
Got home with this on the clock.
In this morning daylight I took a look at the bed again and so far, the worst of it appears to be the driver side rear portion of the fender. that is some body work my 86 year old neighbor would do! He would pop rivet some sort of tin metal into the hole and plaster over it with bondo and call it a great repair. That is what they did in his younger days and you can see by this that is probably what they did in it's life
Truck bed came with a tailgate and lights as well. The tailgate is slightly bent, but they all are!
The bed boards do not appear to have been replaced at some point. They aren't rotten- though I am not going to use them- they are going to be good for something in the remainder of their lifespan.
Anyway- now to figure out how to get the bed out of the trailer without busting it. The bolts holding everything together are rusted and just spinning. I was thinking of just putting the bed on the truck frame, pulling the cab and starting on that! I have about 12 months to do something with this truck before I am due to be transferring again. Decisions decisions.
