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Hey Craig;
I agree that after all the work done it would really suck to have a rough ride. I really do not want to raise the bed height though, so for now I am going to leave it as is. I am 90% confident that it will be okay... famous last words?

I was at the shop today working on the box side trim. I made some good progress in that I got the pice all fit up and tacked together, on the drivers side anyways. I started on the corner pieces, figured out 1 way that wouldn’t work so I tried another route. I was going to make the pieces from scratch and try to angle them to match the wheel tubs. I tried using the press and 2 different sized pipes to form a cone which would match the curve and angle of the tub corner.
I struggled to figure it out, I got as far as creating the cone, but got stuck on how to form the bead at the top. I wanted to make some progress though, so I wound up using some left over bed strip and going with that for now. I cut some relief slots in the bead to allow the piece to be bent around the curve. Once the curve was matched, I welded the cuts, then ground them smooth. This worked alright, but they are a straight bend and not a cone so they don’t match the tub. I will need to add in a filler piece at the top to get a nice gap around the tub corners.

I will stop in the shop after work some time this week and see if any of the guys have some thoughts on how to form that bead. I would prefer to go with the first design as I think it will be much nicer looking, wait and see... a teaser of things to come?

Happy New Years everyone!
Steve