attaching bed to cab?

[inprogress10]

i have seen this done in a few mini truckin mags and have always wondered if it is worth doing. i want to give my truck a smooth look so im considering it. what do you guys think?

[Admin]

I have always liked that look as well. Let me know what you find out about it. I may join in the bed and cab, joining.

[bvr775]

It's allot of work to do with a pickup and still have a driver because the welds between the bed an cab will crack. You will have to do allot of fabrication includeing floor pans and frame work. The entire truck has to bee on solid mounts or rubber unlike the stock setup with the cab on rubber and cab bolted solidly to the fame.
I've done 2,but only because the first one didn't work out real well. An 81 fullsize and an s-10 , I have no desire to do anouther. I used a camaro floor pan and blazer 1/4 panels. and had to do a full box and x braceing on the frame to keep it from flexing. I did it with $50 junk parts vehicles so it didn't really didn't cost much more than the argon, wire, and electricty it took to finish to basic body.

[inprogress10]

I have always liked that look as well. Let me know what you find out about it. I may join in the bed and cab, joining.

my buddy is a professional fabricator so i will talk to him and get back to you.

bvr did the s 10 that you did turn out like you had hoped?

[bvr775]

the s turned out ok, but I had already been trough one buildup before that so i went into the s with a better understanding of what need to be done. I did have to redo the 1/4s after I finished it because the pickup bed quaters just couldn't be attacted to the cab and made to look like it was factory with to tools i had at the time. you have to go all the way to the b pillars with the 1/4s to get a solid enough peise of metal or it cracks. Eventually I what to redo the fullsze. I what to see if long wheel base quaters would work better. if so it would be allot less fabrication.

the s is a little rough now. It's been sitting up at the farm in a barn for a few years now. i never did complete it after my old shop burned.I've just about got the new shop completed. i'm slowly getting metal working equipment I need to fab up complete body panels(and learning to use them even slower) so i'll get around to bringing my incomplete projects down someday and finishing them up, but for now I've 3 going as it is.

[inprogress10]

wow sounds like you have alotta irons in the fire. im guessing custom metal work and fabrication is the main source of your income.

[bvr775]

I don't really make anything off body work anymore. I still do supension mods, but my shop is my personal hobby. I've put all my eggs in one basket before and tryed to live off a very unstable buisness, but with the reduction of jobs and soreing cost of liveing. It allmost impossible in small comunity like this. Exspecaily with 10billion internet companeys all trying to convince people that they can do it cheaper. i now have to work in the buisness that killing our community(all in all we'er just bricks in the wall) , but what can I do. I'll tell you this as buisness man, support your local economy.The net is great, but Buying everything off the net just makes it worse for your kids.

there are outher issues to why i don't do magor builds for people anymore. after my shop burned I didn't even want to mess with peoples cars so i lost allot of clients. If I do work for someone it's normally because they can't afford to take it somewher else and I fell sorry for them. It's my hobby now, i will never again mix my work with hobby. I make money when I sell the cars i build. some goes into my shop and the rest goes into new projects.

[inprogress10]

do you do air ride suspensions?

[bvr775]

very seldom. I ust to do hydro and trick supensions like that, but you lose too much function and it sux when some engineer said something that is mechanicly unsound is a good everyday driver mod. I hate argueing about it so I just don't do trick setups anymore.

I do mostly performance supension and lifts.

[inprogress10]

thanks for answering all my questions. we now continue with our regularly scheduled topic :D

[LayItLowS10]

i personally dont like the look of it all smoothed out. i usually move the cab back when doing a bodydrop to close up the gap. or you can just move the bed mounts back to get the same result.