Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad54
Can anyone tell us how the beds were painted?
Specifically, were they assembled as bare metal and then primed and painted body-color, or were the individual panels primed, bolted together and then painted body-color, or were they all painted and then assembled?
How about the tail gate and its mounts in the build/paint order?
-Brad
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Chevrolet and the GMCs built at Chevy plants. Bed floor was assembled and we think painted or final painted as an assembly. The evidence of this comes from runs dripping to the passengers side on a few survivors with less that 2000 miles. The sheetmetal was dipped in black primer, then completely assembled. The Bed floor was then added to the sheetmetal and rear cross sill welded to the bedsides. The floor was covered in paper BEFORE it was assembled to protect the black finish of the wood. Then the sheetmetal was painted body color in Enamel as a complete unit. The evidence of this is, On Chevys when you take originals apart the black primer is still showing in overlapping seams . Of the 2-3 super low mile trucks the paper was still there that the floor was covered with. Also on Chevys ALL the body/bed bolts to assemble the sheetmetal are painted body color.
GMCs, this, so far, is for the trucks with Black inner fenders in the bed. These trucks were painted in pieces. Each bed side etc was painted body color separate, then assembled. Floor was painted as a unit like above. Then the freshly painted sheet metal was assembled on to the bed floor . The evidence of this is, on these trucks ALL the body assembly bolts are silver cad plated on the front bed panel on both sides, same with tailgate pivot hardware and rear cross sill. These GMCs, the rear lower body colored cross brace was just bolted in and not welded like the Chevys above were.
The exact timing of assembly is still unknown but you get a good picture of what Im saying.