That is a great looking flat bed. in my opinion, you should do whatever it takes to save/reuse the "beaded surround" of the bed. Any decent fabrication shop should be able to replace the crossmembers. After owning a number of trucks with standard pickup beds, I now find that I much prefer flatbeds. Of my 4 trucks, 3 are flatbeds; a 1956 3800, a 1959 3800, and a 1979 C30.
Good luck in your quest to save the flatbed.
Been a long summer and a weird year. Truck has been on the backburner, but am getting back into it. I absolutely want to save the beaded surround, it's one of the most attractive features of the truck I think. And I agree with you on flatbeds. I trailer motorcycles and ATVs a fair bit and having put them in standard pick up beds before, I much prefer a flat trailer. A flat truck bed just means I don't even have to use a trailer to haul 2-3 smaller bikes! One of the things I have planned for this truck is being my hauler for MotoAmerica race weekend at Road America. That track allows spectators to bring small motorcycles (have to be street legal and plated) to "get around" the track campus. It's huge and takes ages to walk across, so there's a healthy collection of small CC bikes running around all weekend. I've got a few 2-stroke bikes that I take every year and next spring I want to take them on the 3600 and then use the flatbed as a raised viewing platform
Cool old truck. Was the truck originally single rear wheel?
You may need to find a local fab shop to make some new cross members.
No, I have the original delivery sheet showing the dual rear option, so it WAS delivered as a dually. Not sure who cut out the notches in the bed as they sure aren't done professionally. Looks like it was done with a cutting torch
It is confusing why Chevy would have delivered the truck with a flatbed that wasn't wide enough to fit the supplied axle/tires, but... there it is. The axle/wheels/tires are all correct to the truck, too so it's not like it was swapped at some point in the truck's life.
