The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed 1957 stepside bed wood 97"

Can someone direct me to information on measurements for drilling the holes for the offset bolt and washers?
And instructions on countersinking the washers?

Thank you

This is my go-to source: GMC Paul.

It has some info on hole locations, but maybe not everything you need?

J what kind of bed are you going to put in?

Mickey - I believe his truck has the "long bed" (8' bed uses 97" bed boards and metal strips).

Yes, 8", 97" bed.
Wanting to go with oak.

jmoore - It sounds like your wanting to build your own bed starting with unfinished wood. From what I've been able to search, no one has posted the actual mounting hole locations/patterns. Some of our usual vendors that sell board kits offer to drill the holes for you as an additional service or part of the kit cost (depending on which ones you buy from). They have the templates but aren;t sharing. If you want to know who those vendors are, let me know and I will provide some links for you.

In reading through posts by other Bolters doing their own bed boards, the majority seemed to indicate that the boards were cut to length/width and edges grooved (as required) using the specs from "GMC Paul" that Fibonachu noted above. Once that's all done you move on to placing the bed, boards, strips set on the frame in the proper place and squaring it up, then drilling the holes from the underside (up through the mounting points in the frame) with an extended length bit which will provide your basic hole location. Then you switch to the top side and finish the bolt hole and bore the counter sink recess for the offset washers so your whole placement is all lined up and ready for hardware.

Make sense?

The way I did mine was with no wood in the bed I put the six bolts holding the bed on to hold it in the proper position ,made sure the bed was square and using a pencil made intersecting marks were the hole goes on the side of the box and back brace ,front panel. I then put the one side board in so you have to take out two of the bolts drilled the back hole put the bolts back in checking square frequently.There are only two bolts (the back two that hold the bed on the truck until the wood is installed so being careful keeping box square before drilling .Once the two back bolts are in and drilled i moved up to the next hole using the mark on the bed and you can see from the open floor on the side were the bolt hole is and can mark center to drill the next hole .the last hole at the front is on the 2nd board and also can be marked by the front panel and from seeing the hole from the side to mark centre. I made the disc depression by marking with pencil and using a dremel tool to grind out to make it flush .Years ago I used the forester bit and it worked better but I could not find it .

Thanks for the tips.