Bed bolt upgrade?

franklin2

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You guys must have better luck with the u-clips than I do. The originals rust up and break, so then they just spin around and you end up grinding the head off the bolt to get the bed off. Of course that ruins your special factory bolt.
 

laserjock

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I seem to take the bed on and off often enough that hasn’t been a problem yet.

LOL
 

Slade

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My ‘94 only had 6 bolts. When I got some camper tie downs the kit came with 8 and showed where to drill the bed and install, apparently the frame is drilled to take 8. Must have let Ford save 12 cents by eleminating them.
 

papadiesel

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6 commonly for the 8 foot bed because dual tanks in the way of getting to bolts. No problem using the newer style, just use lots of antisieze and hand thread before you crank!! Comes with wide washers, so support and looks are better as well!
 

david85

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Anyone got a link or P# for this bed bolt kit? My plan was to make some tie-downs that attach directly under the bed bolts but when I put the bed back on, time was tight so I just went and got carriage bolts. The ability to undo the bolts from the top sounds nice.
 

papadiesel

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EBay for 1999 Ford Or it's a doorman kit don't have the number Comes with six bolts hex head style large washers and the clips make sure you hand thread them before you crank them down you can cross thread them if you're not careful like I did when I was using my Air impact 3/8 :)
 

CDX825

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We did the doorman kit on my brothers truck. I like the setup but the nuts they give you are a pain because they are locking ones. Forget trying to use the fancy clip with a locking nut. It just ends up stripping out or at least that was our luck. Ended up going to the hardware store and getting non locking nuts and all was well.
 

Tristan

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I recently did this on my truck, only 6 bolts. I just looked at my Amazon history and it shows the Dorman 924-311 is the kit I used. It worked fairly well.
 

papadiesel

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again even with locking nuts, as they have, use antiseize and hand thread before you crank down, have had mine off three times (shimming issues with frame, etc) and had no issues!! Careful is always the key!
 

AtomicPlayboy

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Hi folks

New bed on the truck and I figured I ought to give you a trip report.

No problem getting the old one off, I took the bolt heads off with a grinder, then after taking the bed off (tractor with forks = easy) cut the shafts with a cutoff wheel.

I went with the Dorman 924-311 Bed Mounting Hardware Kit via Amazon, and it worked... as well as it would have worked on the truck it was intended for anyway. I wrote 3-star Amazon review suggesting that prospective buyers have on hand an M14x2 tap to chase the threads because they're damaged from the factory where the clips are swaged over the nuts, and the post-galvanization threads on the bolts are crusty - best course of action is to tap in the nice warm house and then dry assemble and disassemble each bolt a couple of times so that all the flashing is off and things go together smoothly - this is key to figuring out whether you've got stuff cross-threaded / hung up on crap that fell in there while you were shifting the bed around or not. I suspect that the people who gave 1-star reviews based on how things went together just whipped out the ugga-dugga wrench and shouted YOLO before trying to drive the bolts home.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who commented for the excellent feedback. Now I've got a tri-color truck with a structurally sound bed on it and am no longer worried about the load falling on the driveline when I go over a bump (yes, it was *that* bad).

Cheers,

-rob
 

DrCharles

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No problem getting the old one off, I took the bolt heads off with a grinder, then after taking the bed off (tractor with forks = easy) cut the shafts with a cutoff wheel.

This is my intended approach. I don't feel like lying under the truck with crap falling/flying in my face, wrestling with 25-year-old rusty bolts that probably will need to be cut off anyway!

I went with the Dorman 924-311 Bed Mounting Hardware Kit via Amazon, and it worked... as well as it would have worked on the truck it was intended for anyway. I wrote 3-star Amazon review suggesting that prospective buyers have on hand an M14x2 tap to chase the threads because they're damaged from the factory

Thanks for the tip!
 

Macrobb

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What I ended up doing on my '93(canadian truck, lots of rust) was cut a slot in the top of each bolt, and use a piece of steel like a screwdriver to hold it in place(I had a friend hold it).
I went underneath with a cordless ugga-dugga wrench and just yanked the nuts out. Crap falling is a bit of an issue, but not *that* bad.

Impact wrenches are awesome; I don't care what anyone says.
 

laserjock

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I put the map torch to the heads on mine. Got them good and hot and then took them off with the impact. All but the front two. Ended up rack welding them on.
 

david85

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I just welded a steel rod across the head of the carriage bolt when I had to pull the bed. Sometimes I got really lucky and the bolt simply snapped.
 

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