Builds 1963 FJ45LP SWB Fixed Top "Sweet Simplicity" (1 Viewer)

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When you can't explain what it is or why it is there, It's a "design feature". :lol:
 
Cracks me up, four structural cross members that attach to the frame, and all four are of a different design.

Probably four different departments. Maybe there's one on each island :meh:
 
Thanks Pete @xtremeVA . Got your message. That would help a lot being able to bend those channels in one piece even if having to make in two sections and welded together. The longest channels were 64” or so IIRC so keeping less than 36” per section is easy. I think all the channels should be 16-gauge, but 18 would suffice I’d guess. I made the front c-channel out of 18, haven’t decided on the rear one but it does support the tailgate hinges and doesn‘t have the bed body along the back to tie into like the front did. I’ll add support internal brackets of some kind like the rear sills on 40’s. I’m a bit concerned with all the welding on these from a rust standpoint going forward.
 
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Give all the metal a good coating and don't worry about the rust....there will be a whole bunch of fun years ahead.
 
Have no fear 😂
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All that white area was fill/bondo/crap, some an 1/8” or more. No dent removal needed here, just fill ‘er in and fill ‘er up! A fair amount of the rust destruction came from underneath that crap.

The pig pile so far from this last 1/3 of the tub.
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Does it have welding goggles?
 
Bellows making. Tedious. Floors and substructure done, sides next. Then rear C-channel sill and support cross members.
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I didn’t have a way to make the tapered ends on the beads, so I just extended the beads to the edge. That’s the way my GMC Sierra is. Only issue will be clearance for the inside bottom edge taper on the tailgate. But as you can see (sort of) that needs repairing anyhow being all rusted, so I’ll just change the taper to fit.
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Paul you could pie slice the side walls and make a taper that way.
There wasn’t a lot left of this part of the bed for me to replicate in its rebuild. They are a bit different than 40’s too so my ‘65 40 as a template was limited. When the floor panel gets flat at the gate (there isn’t a sill cover piece like on the 40’s, the bed floor itself is the sill cover) it wraps around the c-channel for additional structural integrity so I’d need to make at least one 90-deg bend in whatever was there in my rebuild. Impossible for me to do that with the beads, and I thought about doing a cut and taper (and weld) thing back there but decided to just extend the beads all the way and weld a piece at 90-deg to it that then becomes the c-channel sill “wrap.” It will have to be cut to match the cross section profile of the beaded floor, but no biggie after it’s marked. I’ll weld it on both sides so I can grind the outside top and it will look almost like a bend 😆. Of course, in this case the tailgate will be slightly different to make it fit but would still work on other FST applications if someone parted this thing out in the next century. This is an early ‘63 fixed top SWB bed, they are somewhat different than the 1/2 generation later fixed top beds, for instance it has a front c-channel sill while later ones don’t.

Yes, the best you can find on the market....
Let me know what flight it‘s coming in on and I’ll pick it up at the airport. Bus service is limited out here in the boonies. Does it ride horses?

(note my politically correct non-use of gender specific pronouns, as I can’t really tell what it is anyhow. We have multiple bathrooms at our facility so no problem there)
 
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You know @Michael B if I could make a pizza cut at 45-deg on the upside beads then welded a closure piece that turned up to wrap around the sill, that’d be skookum. No tailgate mod would be needed then. But I don’t think I can make an accurate enough cut with hand tools with the floor replacement piece already welded in place. Oh well, you live and learn I guess.

Speaking of living and being hardheaded (me), I got the driver’s side rear patch in but overall that side sucks. It had up to 1/2” of body fill, so the area was not very level/smooth to begin with. I pounded out as much as I could, but it‘s not worthy of anything more build-wise than I‘m already doing. I suspected this from the gitgo hence the principal reason for the “rough” build. I guess I could have completely rebuilt the entire side of the bed (or rather completely rebuilt the entire truck 😂). Mud/dirt/distance will be my friend, just weary trying to make do with a pile of 💩 to begin with. Oh yeah, that motor/runtime issue. I need to go fishing.
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If you have a small die grinder/cutoff wheel you could manage it.
Paul there is nothing wrong with a good 50/50 truck that you can use every day and worry about scratching it.
50/50= 50 feet or 50 mph, any closer or any slower and you can start to see it’s character ;)
 
Let me know what flight it‘s coming in on and I’ll pick it up at the airport. Bus service is limited out here in the boonies. Does it ride horses?

(note my politically correct non-use of gender specific pronouns, as I can’t really tell what it is anyhow. We have multiple bathrooms at our facility so no problem there)

He comes with Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson Virgin Galactic (next flight)....booked a seat this morning ....
.... he jumps out over your house.


.[.
@ night #123#45#öö .jpeg
.].


He is a modest guy. His name is Manni Maulschlüssel = spanner in english}...
....all he needs is a bed for the night, some spaghetti to eat & a six pack Coca Cola.

im.#üoß45rfgv#coke-.png
 
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@Michael B I did this, then made the matching floor piece (I’ll attach a pic later). Built taper helps with tailgate fit, but not completely. More of that in next post.
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Hard to describe, so a bunch of pics. As a caveat, I’m rebuilding this all with very little in existence for template, and an FST tailgate of unknown vintage, and tons of scrutinizing of mud pics for measurement estimates. couldn’t find any actual measurements.

Here’s about all that was left of the passenger side bed at the tailgate. The cutline at the edge of the scale was the base (floor) area of the vertical side of the bed. That hinge was the only one left on the rig, and it was mounted at 3” from the vertical side.
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The tailgate I have (from rustynailjustin) shows the hinge centerline at around 4” from the edge - give or take a bit of overlap with the vertical edge. Not a big deal since I’m rebuilding all this anyhow, just curious as to differences.
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The significant difference is in the hinge mount to the rear c-sill. With the tailgate flush with the top of the bed rails (correct?), the hinge won’t fit with what I have for the c-sill height. The c-sill height is constrained by its mounting to the rear frame cross member. The data I have in hand is a sill height of around 2.1” or so outside bend to outside bend. Not nearly enough for this hinge, tailgate, and/or mount. More height impacts the rest of the bed mounting to the frame.
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Lastly, there’s remnants of another weldnut next to the two for the hinge that I have. Is a fourth weldnut missing (rust) and there is another variant of these early hinges that uses four bolts at the sill? I haven’t seen anything other than the three (SWB, early LPB and later LPB). And I’m pretty sure that’s an original hinge to this rig. Could there be a difference in tailgates from the SWBs (45) and FSTs (40) in the hinge mount locations?
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I only have the one hinge, and they have not been readily available. So maybe that’s a hint for me to make something that fits my setup.
 
Actually Dom @DomSmith I could use measurement “A” in my attached CATIA 😆 drawing. Also, is the tailgate surface level with the bed deck when open? I’m assuming the tailgate top aligns with the bed top rail.
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I measured 14-3/4” from what I had left of my setup. Looks like it needs to be more like 15”.
 

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