Been mainly delayed on doing much work cuz I’m waiting for some bump-stops to arrive in the mail.
I coated the diamond plate with bed liner and then painted two coats to the top of the bed. I’ll do a third coat to the whole thing after painting two coats on the front.
Started on making the hold down latch. I was planning on making one like you'd find on an ammo box, but ended up finding an ammo box about a month ago that looks like it got ran over and was crushed pretty bad, but the latch was still in fair shape. I drilled out the spot welds on the front plate on the ammo box and then spot welded it into place on the truck frame.
I then removed the rod that bends through the latch and the lid (I’ll need to make it longer so it wouldn’t work). Then I bent a piece of sheet metal around the new rod I got so it was a U shape with a flat area that I drilled some holes in for spot welding to the bottom of the bed.
Now I just need the bump-stops so I can finish my bed mounts. Then I’ll be able to have the bed at full rest position to finish the hold down latch. I could just finish the latch now, but doing it after the bed mounts I’ll be able to make sure the latch won't be too loose or too tight.
For the bed mounts so for I had some extra 3” body lift spacers that I cold welded a 1/2” bolt into one end and the other end I’ll cold weld a nut for the mounting the bump-stop. For the bolt I ground the head down so that it was a little bigger then the hole then drilled the all, but 1” of the hole to size of the head. Put some cold weld on the bolt and slipped down in the hole and put some cold weld over the top of the head too.
Hopefully within the week I should get the bump stops then I can finish the bed other then adding the lower rails under the bed which as I mentioned above that I’m waiting till I get the actuator for it. Although I have been thinking about making them removable, or at least the left side for making it easier to work on the hinge when needed.
I might start on the rear rail tomorrow or the next day.
