I bought a piece of 3/16" thick stock steel last week to make a couple of custom brackets to mount my '59 bed to my '84 frame. These are the last of the brackets that I need for the body. Woo hoo! Mounting the body has proven to be a challenge and I'm glad that at least this part of the project is coming to a close. It's been a fun learning experience, but I'm ready for the part that actually begins to make the truck functional again.
I already have the front two custom bed mounts and the rear two custom bed mounts in place and bolted. The bed isn't going anywhere. That's for sure. However, I wanted to give the bed two more mounts in the center to ensure that there can be no allowance for warping it in the event I wind up carrying a heavy load which, inevitably no doubt, I will.
I measured and marked the pieces of metal where I wanted a 90-degree bend. I began to shape it using a hammer and a large, thick piece of angle iron as an anvil. I started to get the bend, but it wasn't going to be anywhere near a 90-degree angle. It was going to curve instead with a fairly large radius regardless of how much I would try to convince it otherwise with the hammer. I needed heat.
I watched a couple YouTube videos of people creating makeshift forges of their own with some pretty commonly found household items. I looked around a bit and realized that I could make one. If for no other reason at all, I'm glad I did this exercise just to know that it is now an option for me to create other items in the future.
With the '59 body mounted and ready to go, my next step is likely getting the steering column installed and secured to the dash. Keep an eye out for the next update.
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