The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed How'd the assembly line put a bed together?

The beds were gas welded in the rear corners. bedside to the rear cross sill before painting.
Did they pre-assemble the bed wood and bed strips, paint that assembly black, then install that assembly to the frame, then lower the bed onto the bedwood assembly?

I don't think the bed wood and strips can be pre-assembled to the cross sills. It would be a lot of trouble (make that impossible) to get the wood under the bedsides angle strips and above the front and rear cross sills. The front panel also has to go under the wood. I believe the wood was originally coated with lampblack and linseed oil prior to assembly, not painted.

I think you're going to have to assemble it one board at a time, starting from the outside boards that slip under the angle strips that were welded to the bedsides. The angle strips also extend over the rear cross sill and the part of the front panel that have to go under the wood.

There were some later beds that had the bed wood painted body color (a fellow bolter has posted pics of bed wood painted body color), so if you wanted to go that way the bed could be fully assembled before painting.

What year and model truck is the question about?
Mine don’t have gas welds at the back
Only bolts to hold them square for about 48-53 years on a half dozen examples
-s

My '51 was welded at the bedside/rear sill interface as were all of the AD's I've seen.

That must be another detail difference between how the USA assembled them vs how GMCanada assembled them
I have found a couple welding differences in the cab assembly
Not welding the bed seemed silly to me all these years because farmers would have to weld on chunks of scrap metal to hold their boxes together at the back end
My solution was to use grade 8 bolts between the sill and walls and make sure they were ridiculously tight

If someone can post the location and photos of the weld for the back of the box I would appreciate it
I might have to weld mine in the future and not feel as bad about it being “not factory”
Thanks
-s

They were welded where the red line is on the attached photo (taken during initial fit-up and before welding.) I don't have a good pic of that area after welding.

Thanks!
Kk on my red 1 ton 1950 for sure sure there was no hints of welding
I had that back sill on the steel shop table and spend a day pounding it into usable shape and any welding remnants would have been noticed
That red line area would make perfect sense to weld a bead on there
-s

My '50 was not welded that I could tell. The rear stake pocket that is part of that area was in pretty bad shape (as was the rear sill) but I think I would have noticed if it was welded.

My three pickups were not welded there

Next time I see the untouched original 1948 AD that's here locally, I'll make a point of looking at it. Unfortunately I didn't get his contact info. It's possible that the welds on mine were done after it left the factory. Unfortunately, the FAM has NOTHING on bed assembly. It's really hard to tell if the welds were factory, as there wasn't much left in the way of paint in that area on my truck. My truck had some strange modifications to the rear suspension, including some 6" pipe sections welded to the frame in place of rubber bumpers.

[On edit] Here's a photo from Denny Graham's collection showing the weld at the rear cross-sill.

I took some pictures of my 1950 and it is welded. It's never been restored or anything so I'm pretty sure it's factory. I'll post them when I get a chance.

Here are some pictures of my truck. Hopeful;ly this is the area you're looking at. You can see that it was welded but not with any real care for detail.