Awesome job! Im glad you posted this because I literally just got my new steel bed strips and I plan to do the exact same job very soon. Any pointers? My dad is going to help me rip the lumber and we were thinking dado blade the grooves into the wood? Im going to paint mine to black as original. I do have one question that stumps me.... why is it that the 3rd crossmember back dosent touch the bottom of the wood? I have only ever had plywood in mine so i I actually screwed a 2x and some shim materials to get them to touch so the plywood was not flexing in the center. Is the correct wood and bed strips really stiff enough where it dosent bow down without the support? Mines a longbed 3/4t also.
