Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed Bed supports

Hello, I'm looking for the best way to remove the angle strips that are attached to the bed sides. Unfortunately the PO welded a steel full size sheet 1/4 thick and had to grind along side the bed sides to remove. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Jim

Was the plate steel just welded to the angle strips? If so, it should be fairly easy to remove the angle strips. They were originally spot welded to the bed sides. On the outer side of the bed, run a sander along where the bed strips are (on the inside), then look for small dimples, which would be the spot weld locations. Then take a spot weld cutter Link [amazon.com] and drill them out and the angle strips should come off (you might have to pry a bit if your cutter doesn't remove all of the weld.)

If the plate steel was welded to the bedsides as well, you'll have to grind the weld off. Hopefully they didn't do that.

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The metal bed was welded to the bottom of angle strip not the piece that's attached to the bed sides, but they welded a continuous weld across the piece by the bottom of the tailgate I guess it's called the rear strip.
Jim

Sounds like you're OK on getting the angle strips loose as I suggested.

The piece by the bottom of the tailgate is called the rear cross sill. You'll need to carefully grind that weld off (if you haven't already). If it's messed up badly, those are available to replace the original. Check with Mar-K [mar-k.com] for replacement. It should also be welded at the rear vertically at each stake pocket (SEE PIC).