Build thread 37 Dodge PU

[Mike P]

The bed strips that were supposed to be here a week ago finally arrived yesterday so I've made a bit more progress

The 37 originally had a metal floor in the bed (big selling point for some back in the day). Somewhere along the way the floor was cut out and by the time I bought it there was only a badly rotted piece of plywood kind of covering the bed. Several years ago I pulled the old plywood out. Fortunately when they cut the bed out they did weld in bracing to support a new floor.






At the time I pulled the old wood out I just trimmed a sheet of 1/2" plywood to lay down so I could put stuff in the bed while I worked on it. (leave it to me to get the bed that was 47 1/2" wide so 1/2" had to be trimmed off the side)





Over the years I've given some thought about what I was going to do with the bed. I kicked around putting a sheet of steel in, using aluminum diamond plate or doing a wood floor......It's still up in the air about what it will end up with when the truck is painted and pretty but for now I needed something.

At this point a really nice looking bed would look out of place in the truck, so I wanted something that looked a little aged. The more I looked at the piece of plywood that was already in the bed the better it looked with the "character" marks and couple of stains it had picked up over the years. I figured what the heck and put a light coat of stain followed by some Thompson's Water Seal on in and called it good. I got all the holes marked and drilled and then got everything bolted down this morning. For being quick and cheap I don't think it came out to bad it and looks appropriate for the truck. The plywood will be a good template for drilling the holes when I get around to doing whatever will be the final bed in the future.







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