Flareside: OEM Bed Wood pictures

Has anyone done a thread on wood replacement? Once my F100 is running, I need to replace the bed floor. Mine has the original 39 year old wood that I don't dare stand on.

When it's assembled, it looks like the floor is mounted to the frame (think flatbed), and then the front and sides are bolted to the floor. Is that the way it's done, or do you assemble the whole thing on the shop floor and then bolt the box assembly to the frame?

myrl883 wrote

Has anyone done a thread on wood replacement? Once my F100 is running, I need to replace the bed floor. Mine has the original 39 year old wood that I don't dare stand on.

There are a few threads about bed rebuilds and such. Quite a bit of info around, although probably not all in one place. I rebuilt the whole bed on mine last year, so I can answer just about anything.

myrl883 wrote

When it's assembled, it looks like the floor is mounted to the frame (think flatbed), and then the front and sides are bolted to the floor. Is that the way it's done, or do you assemble the whole thing on the shop floor and then bolt the box assembly to the frame?

No, it's not really like a flatbed. If you are only changing the wood, you can just leave the bed right on the truck. You'll want to replace the wood mounting blocks while you have it apart, but just doing the wood is pretty straight forward.

I assembled the "box" of my bed on the floor, upside down:



Then I had a friend help me flip it over right side up and sit it on the frame. I had a couple 3/4" boards in there I can't remember why now...lol.



Then I pulled the boards out, and inserted the bed crossmembers and new wooden blocks:



Once you're that far, you can just slide the wood and strips right into place.



I used plywood like the later Bullnose Flares, but the process is all the same with the boards like the earlier trucks (1980-1982)

SCFlareside wrote

So this thread explains a lot.  The smooth TOP surface on my bed is actually the MDO peeling off in so many places...  I was looking right at it but not seeing it

It sure does explain a lot. I went on the website of the company where I bought my marine plywood, and they have a section/picture for MDO plywood, and that is EXACTLY what mine looked like on the underside:



https://robertbury.com/products/

It is really very interesting to know what Ford used. The top side of my wood floor had been painted black, and it was pretty rotten, so if there was an overlay on the top I couldn't see it. However, the bottom looked just like this picture. Thanks Jim for clarifying what I was trying to say when I said mine looked like MDF on the bottom...lol.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Cory,
I think the rotary cut Fir looks fantastic!

There's nothing second rate about that at all.  

Thanks Jim! I guess the point was, that oak or hardwood boards in general are the defacto standard for refinished floors in these things. Softwood and plywood are for daily drivers. I was thinking about using some bird's eye maple, but like I said earlier, I was really just trying to finish the truck and stop spending so much money on it...lol, it was never really supposed to be that fancy.

Elegance is best, understated.

Thanks so much Rembrandt. Pictures can be invaluable!

I can now see the front and rear cross members in the photo where yours is upside down. I didn't see those on my truck, and so I thought that all of the sheet metal rested on the bed floor (which seemed too weak to work). If the sheet metal stays on the frame, it looks like the job just got a whole lot easier!

Also, since the question seems to have come up... Both of my flares have original bed floors, and the floors are the same color as the trucks. It looks like Ford completely assembled and painted the beds before installing them.


Next question - Looking at the parts catalog, early flaresides (before 07/82) had multiple strips of wood instead of 3 pieces of plywood like the ones shown. The metal strips are a different part number as well. It looks easier to me to use plywood like the late trucks had. Does anyone know the difference between the early and late model metal strips?

myrl883 wrote

Thanks so much Rembrandt. Pictures can be invaluable!

I can now see the front and rear cross members in the photo where yours is upside down. I didn't see those on my truck, and so I thought that all of the sheet metal rested on the bed floor (which seemed too weak to work). If the sheet metal stays on the frame, it looks like the job just got a whole lot easier!

Ya, so it's not so bad. The outer shell stays on the frame. The front and rear sills are basically part of the "box", and the wood floor is sitting inside it. You would slide the left and right boards in first so they can slide under the fenders, and then work towards the center.

myrl883 wrote

Also, since the question seems to have come up... Both of my flares have original bed floors, and the floors are the same color as the trucks. It looks like Ford completely assembled and painted the beds before installing them.

Yes sir, sitting new on the dealer's lots, the bed floors were painted the color of the truck.

myrl883 wrote

Next question - Looking at the parts catalog, early flaresides (before 07/82) had multiple strips of wood instead of 3 pieces of plywood like the ones shown. The metal strips are a different part number as well. It looks easier to me to use plywood like the late trucks had. Does anyone know the difference between the early and late model metal strips?

Here's a fancy drawing showing the differences in the metal strips. So, from 1980-1982, there were 7 boards and 6 metal strips. The metal strips fit into grooves in the boards, so the edges of the strips extended past the flat bottom section of the strips. Starting late in 1982, Ford went to the 3pc plywood and 5 metal strips which simulated 6 wider boards. These metal strips had the edges curled right around because they sat flush on-top of the plywood (three of the metal strips were not covering any gaps at all).



As far as I know, nobody is making the later style flush mount metal strips. I know Ron/Reamer modified a set for his '86 by removing the longer edges of the metal strips.

OK, Now I'm really confused. The bed of my F100 appears to be totally original. All of the paint is aged appropriately, the condition of the stripes perfectly match the cab, etc. BUT, the floor is 3 pieces of wood exactly as the rest of you with newer flaresides have, and it has 5 late style metal strips that match Rembrandt's drawing of the '83 and newer floor strips. Maybe it isn't as much of a survivor as I believed it to be, or someone had the floor replaced many years ago. My build date is 01/81.

Oh wow!  Can you give us more pics of that floor?  Is it worth sanding down and saving?

To be clear, the besides DO rest on the wood - and it can be a pain to slide the wood in there, as the crossmembers have to be unbolted and things can wiggle around... but its not awful.  Just lots of bolts.

Also to add: I think if your floor had originally been equipped with boards it would have additional holes in the crossmembers that are now unused... you could look for that perhaps

Unfortunately the edges are very rotten. The center board is actually pretty good, but both sides are bad. Here are a couple of pics of the floor, and the edges under the right fender.
Kind of odd, really. This truck was built at San Jose, originally registered in CA, and has spent all of it's life in CA or the eastern WA desert.

myrl883 wrote

OK, Now I'm really confused. The bed of my F100 appears to be totally original. All of the paint is aged appropriately, the condition of the stripes perfectly match the cab, etc. BUT, the floor is 3 pieces of wood exactly as the rest of you with newer flaresides have, and it has 5 late style metal strips that match Rembrandt's drawing of the '83 and newer floor strips. Maybe it isn't as much of a survivor as I believed it to be, or someone had the floor replaced many years ago. My build date is 01/81.

Well, the documented change to the 3pc floor was 07/82, but maybe they were installing them earlier at the San Jose plant? I have heard a people comment over the years that they had 1982 model year trucks with the 3pc plywood floors, but I assume Ford still built 82's for a few months after 07/82. If the rest of the truck looks to match the inside of the bed, I'd say it was original, unless like you say somebody replaced the floor 30 years ago and bought the parts from Ford?

I always thought that would be cool to walk into the parts counter at a Ford dealer and order up some wood...lol.

SCFlareside wrote

Also to add: I think if your floor had originally been equipped with boards it would have additional holes in the crossmembers that are now unused... you could look for that perhaps

I think if you look at the bed crossmembers in your truck, you'll see that even if you have the factory 3pc wood floor, the holes for the previous style board floor were there anyway. You can actually see them in the pics of the underside of my 1984 bed.



It's probably not easy to notice unless you had the two different trucks side by side, but the outer bed strip locations were actually the same between the different versions. All that changed was that the early floors had two strips down the middle, and the later trucks had one strip down the middle. The outer four strips were in the same locations on both. If you look at my picture above, you'll see that the center bolt hole is there for my 3pc floor, but the two other holes (red arrows) were there for the board floor anyway.

So when the guys were assembling these beds, they either drilled those center holes at the time, or they were there all along.

myrl883 wrote

Does anyone know the difference between the early and late model metal strips?

By the way, this is what the early strips looked like below. They fit into the wood instead of on top of it.



Gary has some good picture in the bed section, under Flareside bed floors:

http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/beds-tailgates-and-components.html

I actually really like the pictures of the dark wood floor with the black strips. I think that looks great.

Great documentation Cory!
The July date seems just before 'next year tooling' for most Ford plants.

I can definitely see how they might push up an assembly change at one plant just to work out any links and provide some damage control.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Great documentation Cory!
The July date seems just before 'next year tooling' for most Ford plants.

I can definitely see how they might push up an assembly change at one plant just to work out any links and provide some damage control.

Ya, I've often wondered how some of the changes played out when there were a half a dozen plants across the continent and 3-4 time zones. Surely some changes varied wildly across the production lines. The topic came up several times in arguments with Steve83...lol. I guess we agreed to disagree.

I actually mounted my belt sander with a jig to make it sit above a work table with adjusters so I could lower it to the table surface. Then I ground down the "early version" bed strips to mount flush like the later versions.
I didn't want the grooves to act like "water catchers"
Kinda like a metal surface plainer....

I'd bet your floor is original then.  Does it seem to have the MDO "shell" on the surfaces?

Yes, it's made from the same material. The outer overlay is in slightly better condition, but the wood plies are rotting badly along the outside edges. I'm glad that it has the later bed floor, as it looks like a lot less work to replicate.

Looks like I'm on the hunt for a couple of sheets of MDO, which doesn't seem to be sold in this part of the country!

Ask around at real lumberyards.  If they don't have it maybe they can tell you where.

Old school sign shops too.
If you go to some vinyl banner place they might not have a clue.

And you've touched on the downfall of MDO.
You need to really seal the edges, because they will wick moisture into the core and never see daylight to really dry out.
Since the surface IS waterproof, water cannot diffuse out, making a sauna that the bacteria and fungus that feed on cellulose love.