Self Proclaimed "Highboy" God Status 1 of 2

Welp, this half of the little blog entry where the majority of the project comes together and one of the two most tough issuess are dealt with. The bed!

Friday started off great as I received in the mail not only the steel I needed to make adaptor brackets for the frame to bed assembly, but also the interior rubber floor mat, as well as the gas tank. I needed the tank especially for this step measure out how this will all fit together and make sure any bracing wouldn't interfere with the gas tank.

Friday evening however, I decided to call it early and not work on the truck. I ended up having to haul wood for a friend and frankly, I was too tired to really care about trying to wrench on the truck, so I figured I'd better save it for Saturday bright and early.

On a side note, this picture should make you smile. :-) You might ask yourself, how can 4 crazy guys pick this up without any equipment (or injuries) and get this into the bed of a truck? Future blog entry for sure. Haha

Back to trucks - "Bright and Early in the Morning" is a relative term for me. That can mean 4:30am gearing up for a road trip to anywhere in the USA, or it could mean 11:30am I’m too tired and cranky to care about the rest of the world and wish the phone would stop ringing early. I decided 9:00 for the alarm with a cup of coffee would be a good start- and oh? Did I mention the phone was set to silent so I couldn’t hear it?

I really want to get all technical with this post, but think I’ll keep it higher-level with just the basics rather than a “tech” article on what exactly to do.

Let’s recap:
Highboy frames are narrower than any other 73-79 with same body
I’m using a non-highboy bed and body
Bed needs to be made to match frame
Highboy beds are non-existent

Caveat:
Bed bolt holes in non-highboy bed are wider than frame
Bed braces in non-highboy bed are in different locations
Bed braces in non-highboy bed are different heights
Bed braces are welded and non-removable

That left me with only one real solution. Figure out a way to fully support the original bed bracing, attach it to my frame in a narrower location, and retain the original bed bolt holes in the tub of the bed. I REFUSE to do welding or sheet metal work to make this happen. I wanted a bolt on solution ANYBODY can do with basic tools.

Let’s describe basic tools- Drill, hacksaw, open end wrenches, angle grinder, and some ability to measure properly. I cheat- I have a chop saw, 1.5 horsepower Delta/Rockwell drill press, and a machinist buddy on-call next door. Did I mention my sexy new gantry crane? I know, life isn’t fair.

The steel was pretty simple. I put a 1 inch body lift under the cab so that I had 1 inch of bed lift to work with to make adaptor brackets. I purchased 5 sticks of 2” x 1” x .125 steel stock in 48 inch lengths, some ½ inch flat stock, some 1” x 1” angle, and I had some 1” x 3/16 bar already. Also in my possession was 6 more 1” x 3” aluminum spacers used on the cab. Note: Add small hardware store of grade 8 nuts, bolts, washers, etc in the basement.

First off was measuring everything out. There are 4 bolted braces to hold down the bed, and 2 additional support braces that did not receive bed bolts. Starting with the 4 braces that did need bolts, it was fairly straight forward.

First I need to adapt the pattern, then I needed to adapt the height. Pattern was measured out between the two frames for the braces, each was cut 2” over length of outside (non-highboy ) bed bolt pattern. Two ½ inch holes were drilled for factory highboy pattern, one for each side, then two drilled for non-highboy pattern.

Each brace was located on frame matching where bed location was needed, then frame was drilled. Highboy bolts needed to be recessed so they wouldn’t interfere with bed braces, so I drilled the upper hole of box tubing out to ¾ inch so bolt head would slip down into box tubing. ½ inch bolts were inserted for highboy pattern, and brace was set onto bed.

This went on for the 3 remaining braces. Now I had two additional supports I needed for the bed. One was easy, one was slightly harder. The first non-bolted under-bed brace (second brace on frame) actually was a full width brace. All it needed to be was supported between bed and frame. Two of my 1 inch aluminum pucks were perfect as this brace was the same depth as the original highboy bed, and surprisingly, in the same position!

So I had to figure out a way to make these little puckers stay in place. Quick trip to the drill press, and I countersunk a ¾ inch hole deep enough the head of the bolt would say under the put height and I could bolt through frame with retaining lock washer and nut. These two pucks can be seen behind first brace which is nearest to the cab.

The second non-bolted brace was a bit trickier. It wasn’t a full width brace like the front one, and only had two tabs welded onto it that held it against the frame. Well, since these tabs were to the width of the non-highboy frame, once they were set onto the highboy frame, they were too wide and were just being supported by thin air.

That’s where my fifth stick of box tubing came in. I drilled and located that support properly and plopped it in. Problem was, it wasn’t high enough! So, a couple more aluminum pucks in hand, I ran over to my buddies house and had him chuck them in a lathe and turn them down to ¾ of an inch to make up the difference in brace height. I put the pucks underneath my box tubing, and now I had a PERFECT cross support at the right height with the bed fully resting where it should be on those two little tabs!

Additionally, the rear most cross brace had to be raised ¾ of an inch as well. Pucks went under that brace too. Bingo- after picking the bed up, dropping it back down, measuring, picking it back up, dropping it down, we had it fully supported as good as it came from the factory with zero loss of structural integrity!

Now came the REALLY fun part. Bolting it all down and seeing if everything lined up. Well, It's kinda funny... You can’t remove the brace bolts once the bed is in place... You can’t hold the top of the brace bolts with the bed bolts in place... But you can't position the braces without the bed bolts in place... Huh you say? Yeah, you HAVE to drop everything in place LOOSE to get the bed positioned perfectly, then tweak the braces to get the positioned properly, then remove the bed bolts once again, and then finally tighten the cross braces to highboy frame, and finally then retighten the bed bolts to the cross braces!

That’s accomplished by putting all bolts into place with no nuts. Get bed exactly where you want it, remove each bed bolt at a time, slip ¾ inch wrench into end of box tubing to hold inner frame bolt head, run lock washer and nut tight on frame (by yourself with one arm around outside of frame holding wrench and other inside holding ratchet). Do all 8.

Now, put bolts through bed to frame brace. Hold wrench in end of box tubing and pray to GOD you can drop the bolt directly into the nut and lock washer you slipped into outer end of box tubing. If you knock it blindly too far in, pull out with magnetic retrieval tool. Try again. When you get lucky, you can hold the wrench in one hand and reach around the bed-side with the other and ratchet tight while standing precariously on a rickety old wooden chair while the neighbor’s stare at your butt-crack. There was nothing easy about this, but it IS possible and I got'r'done!

After that, I stood back, admired my work and low-and-behold, the bed was PERFECTLY straight, PERFECTLY aligned, all my bolt holes lined up! It was tight, it was good, and most importantly, it was 2:30am and time for some freakin’ coffee…