So, the truck I'm buying has some rust holes in places. Not a lot, but there are some areas that need tending to, for sure. One area is just behind the driver's side door where the wood of the bed sits. I guess water settling in the bed made it rust there.

Also... the bed wood is rotted all to hell. I need to replace it. I don't know what I'm looking for. I found this site but there are options that I don't really understand. Again, I'm new to the truck game. I'm not sure what the drilling preference means and I'm also not sure what the bed strip preferences mean. Like punched, unpunched or hidden fastener.

Any information about these old wood beds would be greatly appreciated. I assume that the aftermarket wood is better than the original due to better sealing and all that jazz.

 

Here is a mock-up I photoshopped. This is not even close to my truck, but it's a flareside, it has the style of bed I'm looking for and it's the same color as my truck, so I take what I can get.

 

Dennis carpenter and LMC, I think, both sell "bed board kits" that arel ike $800. This is a thread that discusses the OEM boards:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ed-boards.html

this is a thread that shows how to do a cheap one yourself:

Technical Shop Truck Bed Wood - Cheap, Durable, Attractive - THE H.A.M.B.

 

Very cool. Thank you for the links.

 

Mar-K (mar-k.com) has the wood, reproduces all the parts (tailgates, front panels, bedsides, crossmembers, bed runners [steel dividers] and etc), also has complete beds.

The wood is pre-cut to match the various Flareside bed lenghts and is rabited for the bed runners to nestle into.

All the repro parts sellers buy these parts from Mar-K, so eliminating the middle-men might save you a few buckaroo's.

As original, the wood (it was pine from northern MI) was painted body color. You rarely see this today, because people love the look of wood grain, especially 1/4 sawn oak.

AFAIK, Mar-K has both pine and oak available. The oak is imported, but from where, I forget.

Take the shipping charges into consideration. NPD (National Parts Depot) has locations in: CA, Ocala FL, NC & MI / Mar-K = OKC / Carpenter (and Carolina Classics) = NC, / LMC = KS / Mac's = NY.

 

That's extremely useful information. Thank you so much.

I wonder if I could pick up the parts in Ocala. It'd be a 2 hour drive, but it might be worth it in the long run.

 

Call or email NPD and ask if the wood is in stock. If it is, that's just ducky.

If it isn't, can be shipped to their Ocala location (probably from their NC location) and I doubt they will charge you these shipping charges.

2004, was at Carpenters place in Concord, bought one of his bed wood kits for a pals 1954 F100. Since I flew in/out of Charlotte, had Carpenter ship it.

I don't know what the shipping charges were for the wood, because I spent 3 grand on NOS, repro parts, wood kit...then had the whole enchilada shipped to LA LA Land.

 

It looks like they don't do entire beds for anything past '72, but that's fine. I can repair the rust on the sides of this bed. The wood is the important part and I'm liking what I see here. I'm actually pretty suprised at the prices. I thought this would be much more expensive.