Bed is yellow pine, with 4 or 5 coats of linseed oil. Each board is lap-jointed under the next with space for drainage, and fastened with 1/4 inch bolts through the cross sills. It is stored inside so it should hold up pretty good.
I'll probably just bite the bullet, the $800 bullet, and get new 8.25x20s for the rear. The fronts are in great condition. My thoughts on the 22.5s were if I could find rims with tires in good condition it might save some money and keep from winding the engine so much at 55-60. The bed actually has 1.5 inches more clearance inside the rubrail to the cross sills, unless using a wider tire that would extend out to the rubrail. The cross sills are currently about 6 inches above the tires. I loaded about 3 tons of block on it to see how much it would go down, it went down about an inch and a quarter. It still had another inch and a half before it would have been on the helpers. The wood spacer between bed and frame is 1.25 inches, and the u-bolts are long enough that another inch could be picked up there.
