Looking for bed parts

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KLF

KLF

Frame waxer
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Two weeks ago I took my truck off the road, started tearing it apart to do a frame-off. The Rust Demon is starting to take hold here and there, and I don't wanna let it get out of control.

Before starting, I took it to a local body shop that specalizes in restoration work, the owner really liked the truck and said it was a good candidate for a restore. We talked about the bed, I am now just starting to get the typical bubbles on the seams where the four lower "skirts" are attached. He recommended I get new ones, he has a process that he developed back in the 90's for repairing these beds when they start to rust. He flips the bed over, drills out the spot welds and tosses the old skirts, then attaches new ones with high strength epoxy. He swears it will never rust again.

Problem: Toyota no longer sells these parts, according to CDan.

Any ideas how I can get some?

No, I don't want a fiberglass bed.
 
Howdy! Your best bet is to just buy a good bed from someone who when Truggy style on theirs. I had to do that on my 85. If you have rust, it will be on the bottom of the main body also, where it mates up to the skirts. It will also be likely to rust around the welds where the fender wells are tacked to the skin around the wheel wells. It may also like to rust where the floor panels overlap. I kept my first bed so I could make a beater trailer out of it, but I can't stay ahead of the rust. It seems like the only way to beat it is to completely cut out any area that has rust starting to show. John
 
A rust free bed? In New England? Not gonna happen. I would bet my current bed is actually one of the best around. There is VERY little rust on it now.

When I got the truck way back in 2002, I lifted out the bedliner and removed the bed from the frame and smeared cosmoline all over the bottom, on the seams, and inside the bed walls. It has had almost annual coatings of 90W on the underside and on/in the frame as well. There's not a speck of rust inside the bed.

But the skirts are really starting to show their age. My 35's were not kind to them (part of why I sold them), both of the front skirts are kinda mangled now. Now I just gotta find new ones.

Such is life for driving a classic vehicle, I guess...
 
Buy a Texas truck, or the bed from one.
 
damn KLF there is a place not far from me that has acres and acres of used truck beds but the damn it dosnt come to me..........if you want me to ask the guy that told me about it say the werd.

I know even if they had one shipping would rape you
 
Ever thought of cutting patch panels out of scrapped trucks to slowly rebuild your bed (or a spare bought to rebuild)? Or using sections from a 2WD bed, which tends to see less abuse? I've seen beds that were rusted in one seam and not another. With enough patience, you may find enough to build one good bed out them. Or you could learn to fab your own patch panels ...
 
Unless this rig has sentimental value, my guess is you would be $$$ ahead and end up with a better/more valuable rig if you start with a rust free truck? In my limited experience rust repair is expensive and never 100% successful?

Around here even very nice beds are pretty hard to get rid of. This '85 is losing it's bed and a lot of other things, getting turned into a crawler.:cool:

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LMK

You want to sell your stock front bumper?:)

Back to the issue at hand, my first thought was check marlin crawler classifieds, they had an 86 being parted out, i think that would be interchangeable with the 85?
 
My current bed is not rusty. The inside is absolutely mint. The seams are doing remarkably well. There are a few quarter-size spots on a couple of the lower rear skirts. I did find one skirt piece on eBay, $40 delivered, it's brand new OEM. The only part that has significant rust is the tailgate, but I just bought a brand-new still-in-the-box Toyota OEM tailgate (also no longer available from Toyota) on eBay for $25.

Shipping a bed is insanely expensive, that's not gonna happen either.
 
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