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| | | | Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 693 'Bolter | | 'Bolter Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 693 | A friend with a body shop asked me to help assemble a bed on a 66 short stepside - this is because i built the bed on my 56 and they are nearly identical (I only have my 55-59 assembly manual to refer to). The bed went together without much fuss. However there is something amiss with the sill/frame interface. After placing the bed on the frame, it high-centers on the "reinforcement" strip that i placed in the center of the bed (is this correct location for this?). All the rest of the mounting locations then sit about 1" above their frame mounting points as if a spacer of this thickness is needed. All the sills are new from one of the major/popular vendors, and I notice that some of the other suppliers I checked for reference do not carry cross-sills for this series - leading me to believe that perhaps the cross sills obtained are 'universal" or intended to require modification.
In their "Bed Side Interchangeability" article, MAR-K says for 64-66 that "The cross sills have a 1" tall spacer welded at each bed-to-frame bolt location". The cross sills bought for this project have no such welded spacer - most likely explaining my problem. I can get this to work if I remove the "reinforcement" cross-strip or add a spacer at the 8 mounting points..
I hope one of the 60-66 guys can make sense of what i said here and make a recommendation. Thanks for any help.
| | | | | Joined: Dec 2005 Posts: 406 Shop Shark | | Shop Shark Joined: Dec 2005 Posts: 406 | You are right, a spacer is needed under each cross sill mounting point. The rear sill has a taller mounting bracket and does not need a separate spacer. View a photo of the correct rear sill bracket on the Mar-K web site, it is part number 100717. If you do not add the spacers under the cross sills, the rear sill mounting will be taller than the other cross sills, and the bed will still not sit level. If you still have the original cross sills, the spacers can be cut off and welded to the new cross sills.
Mar-Ktech | | | | | Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 693 'Bolter | | 'Bolter Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 693 | thanks for the reply.. all the old cross sills are gone - and the sill mounting matches everything else so a spacer will be needed there too. It looks like the owner bought the wrong stuff for his year, so he'll either have to go get the right parts or separate spacers will have to be used | | |
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