Ring in the new with some quality time with your old truck! A great time to tackle a winter project. If you do not have access to your truck, start your parts list for spring!
The days are officially getting longer now, you know!
Well I finished installing my rotten pine bed wood with plastic deck boards. It looks very nice. Nice naturalish color and wood grain. I got lucky with the dimensions of the old bed wood and the new deck boards. The old eight board bed wood measure 5 3/4", but the plastic boards measure 5 1/2". I was able to cheat by moving the outer boards inward, thus preventing gaps which would not be covered up by the bed strips. I cut spacers out of the scraps of the plastic boards to keep the wood from moving side to side (plastic doesn't expand like wood, so these spacers won't cause any buckling). I drilled holes in the middle of the spacers so that bed strip bolts will keep them in place. I put the spacers between the boards on the top of the 3 center cross sills (21 in total). I did have to drill a few holes in some of the cross sills to accommodate a few of the bed strip bolts, but not as many as I thought that would. By the way, I did not router the grooves on the edges of the plastic boards for the bed strips. You can't even tell the difference. The grooves in the wood boards are there to capture the bed strips to keep everything in place when the wood expands and contracts. Not needed with plastic boards. Carl
Last edited by 52Carl; Sun Sep 01 2019 01:19 AM.
Re: plastic deck boards for bed wood.
[Re: 52Carl]
#1324356Sun Sep 01 2019 03:59 AM
If/when my soon-to-be-painted bed boards go bad, I'll be looking for black plastic deck boards. I bought the boards several years ago - when "plastic" decks boards were uncommon and untested.
1970 Chevrolet C10 - Grandpa’s- My first truck.—in progress to shiny 1972 Chevrolet C20- rusted 1970 Chevrolet K20 Suburban—rusted. 1950 Chevrolet 1300- in progress to shiny.
Parts trucks- 1951 GMC 9300 1951-GMC 9430 1951- Chevrolet 1300
Re: plastic deck boards for bed wood.
[Re: 52Carl]
#1324924Thu Sep 05 2019 11:19 AM
Looks nice. Couldn't help but notice your brush ax. Working truck or window dressing? My first real job out of high school was on a track gang for the railroad. I learned to hate those brush axes. I cringe every time I see one.
Last edited by dgrinnan; Fri Sep 06 2019 01:14 PM.
Thanks for the comments! I was contemplating painting it black, but I don't know how well it would hold up on the plastic. Besides that, the pattern which they put into it makes it look like wood. This truck is my daily driven work truck, so I don't want it to look too nice. Dave, the Kaiser blade (some people call it a sling blade, I call it a Kaiser blade, emm hmm) is what I consider to be crowd control.
