The front crossmember under the bed floor is still in place. It will sit on the frame as normal. The bolts will still go thru that piece into the frame. I welded the holes shut and smoothed them over.

For the rear, I will weld square tube onto the frame in the mounting locations. I'll weld plate onto the tops of the tubes and drill holes so I can use the factory clip nuts.

The last two bolting locations will not be used.

 

How do you like that evercoat? I have done body work before but have never been that impressed with Bondo. I recently had been looking into other types of fillers and came across the evercoat brand and people seem to be pretty happy with it.

 

Well my friend who works at the body shop where it will be painted suggested the evercoat. Plus, a few others suggested the same. I'm new to body work and not liking it a whole lot. Lol.

 

HAHA yea body work isn't the most fun you will ever have. Takes forever to get good results.

 

OMG you don't have to tell my. patched the roof on the charger. that took 4 weeks of sanding, laying putty, sanding , laying putty, and oh yea more sanding. it's heard work, but it's worth it.

 

I got sick of needing help moving the bed around every time I needed to get a car in the garage so I made a dolly.

 

sweet

 

I made some bracing for the front of the bed floor and started smoothing out the ribs in the bed floor..

 

Nice progress, just looks like way more work then I will ever care to do for the bed of my truck!

 

Thanks man. I'm just about out of desire to continue adding filler and sanding. I think it will be finished off at the body shop. It's real close now.

Today I picked up some square tube to fab mounts for the tanks, compressor, valves and stuff.

 

looking good. until now i see this thread! keep up the good work

 

Small update. I finally got back out into the garage after being sick for a week. I started work on the tailgate. I found some little washers that filled the holes pretty well. I welded them in and welded the centers up.

 

So I removed the old box. I cut out the crossmembers from the notches and cut two inches out of the notches.

 

It's just a test fit but it fits. I still have to make the mounts that the bed will sit on. In this pic it's sitting on the notches. You can see it's sagging to the rear. I'll have about a quarter inch of clearance between the notches and the underside of the bed floor.

 

I need to figure out the rear shocks, since I have none. This is how I was thinking about mounting them. Tabs welded to the lower bars, but I'm not sure how I should mount the upper. If anybody has an idea, let me know!

 

Drill a hole in the notch right there and weld on a nut! Or you could twist the shock sideways and weld two more tabs at the top there and you have a upper shock mount.

 

By moving the shock between the frame and the lift bar, it puts the shock closer to the frame and I will be able to use one of these mounts. Simple and clean.

 

I cut up the pieces of notch that I cut off to make these. I still have to do the driver side. I'm also going to sand blast em real quick and coat em in chassis saver.

 

nice work so far~! looking good.

 

Thanks guys!

 

 

Heres the lift bars painted and put back together. The shocks don't limit the suspension travel.

 

The new crossmember that will double as the front mount for the fuel cell

 

I need to make the mounts so there was a little bit of adjustability as I will be cutting a round hole in the bed floor to flush mount the fuel cap. So I started with two four inch pieces of square tube. I notched the tops, cut some strips of steel, drilled and welded a nut to the strips. Then I cut a slot in another piece and welded it over the square. It traps the nut and allows for maybe an inch of lateral movement so I can adjust the location of the fuel cell to make certain the filler will be centered. That is, of course, if the hole I'll cut isn't perfectly located. Lol

 

You do some awesome work! Can't wait to see this thing finished.