Fixing Dents in Bed Floor - Any How Tos Out There

[lks dcvn]

I have a rust free bed (pretty rare in these parts) and it has definitely been used as a truck and is has some dents in the bed floor.

Does anybody have any tips on how to straighten out the floor on these trucks?

Any and all help appreciated.

Thanks.

[SactoJim]

Hammer & dolly.....stud puller, a little filler and lots and lots of time and patience! Best done with bed off.

I have probably as much time on the inside of the bed as I do on the truck exterior!

I believe new floors are available as well.....though if your like me and not a lot of $$$ to throw around, best fixing what you have if it's not in bad shape.

[Peter82]

yea, bed floors are like $900 or some crap. Like he said, take the bed off and put it on something so u can get to the under side. Have a friend up top and softly tap the dents back to place. Use the Hammer-off-dollie technique. (if you hit the hammer on the dollie you will hear a high pitch "pinging" noise. not good because the means you could be stretching the metal.) u want to hammer around the edges of the dent while the dollie is being pushed on the high side of the dent. that will bring the dent back to shape. Remember, metal had a menory, it will go back to its shap as long as u dont beat the crap out of it. A Utility dollie might be the thing your looking for to get in the tight spots but Spoons work good also (not the eating spoons. its more of a flat dollie)

[nds1968]

It took several people to hit the big dents out of my floor. I used a BFH and a 1"x2" steel flat bar to hit against. After that I used a small hammer and dolly but that even took two people. I then cut blocks of wood to fit the floor contour to use when sanding the filler. I had so much time and energy spent on my floor but not much money.

Check my build out..Blue Goose

[SactoJim]

Nice job.......reminds me of an episode of "Dream Car Garage" when they were restoring a 70 LS6 El Camino and basically skim coated the entire bed floor.......hours and hours and days of work.

Really pays off though cuz not too many go through the trouble and just line it.......but then again my truck will never be used as a "truck" again!

[rod86]

ooh bugger doin that.. i think ill live with a few lil dents in mine...

[lks dcvn]

wow - looks good!

Thanks for the responses! Guess I will have some work ahead of me...

[BigSky71]

I got my bed pretty close with hammer and dolly then had a color match bed liner sprayed. The big dents virtually disappeared and the little ones are completely covered up. If I didn't have a friend that sprayed bedliner though I probably would have done the skim coat method.

[70' GMC]

If you do all that I would rhino line the bed to protect it from dents dings and rust

[Gromit]

I know this is an old post but I had the same question and might as well add to the good original.

I had assumed that these steel bed floors were rolled to achieve the corrugated shape - I thought six feet by eight feet was borderline too big for a sheet metal press.

But then I noticed a profile in the corrugations that show it couldn't have been rolled; and instead was made on one big humongous pair of press dies.

Moreover, I think the die designer may have made a mistake because one of the square holes is in the wrong place in relation to the provision in the corrugation (photos attached) - there is a little cul-de-sac for the punch out but I think they messed up.

Not a big deal but interesting at least to me.

Regarding the steel bed floor dent issue I did accidentally discover a way to clearly see the dents or low spots - if you level the bed with a bubble level and then spray in some water with the garden hose the low spots are very apparent.

Thanks for the suggestion on the BFH and the 1" by 2" steel flat bar; I'm gonna try that.

One surprise for me with this was when I went to hose out the lower U-channels (under the bed floor) - OMG you would not believe how much crap came out of those. Actually the worst one was the front bed panel upper rail - it has that oval shaped tube at the top? - when I took off the left bed side and sprayed the hose down the end of that it was like opening the gates of hell. I have no idea how all that got in there; normally the ends are mostly covered by the bedsides.

[Dead Parrot]

Cul-de-sac could be there for a special version of a truck or different weight class. A lot easier to adjust the location of the square punch for the carriage bolt then the stamped cul-de-sac. For that matter, they could have used the same set of floor molds from one year to the next or even through a model change. I am guessing a set of dies that large are not cheap to make.

[Gromit]

I have other stuff to work on so just pondering at the moment but I got the bed off and tilted up where I can reach both sides (see photo)

I'm thinking of ordering a square or rectangle solid steel bar maximum width 1-3/8" to fit the low or negative channels or corrugations underneath the bed. The high channels are only 1-1/4" wide

The cross tubes prevent access to the entire lower surface of the bed, and the shortest length of dollie would be 3" to fit between those; the next narrowest could take a 6" long dollie; all the rest of the spaces between the cross tubes are 8" or longer but I think a dollie longer than 8" would be getting too heavy to hold with one hand. (see photos)

One thing I don't yet know is what kind of steel bar to get - cold or hot rolled mild steel? or do I need a carbon steel alloy? or Stainless? I'm just ordering a 12" length from online metals and will cut the pieces I need.

One observation is that this bed floor steel is quite a bit (three times?) thicker than normal auto body steel - it looks like about .065" thick and it is carbon steel so quite beefy - any advice on the exact hammer to use choosing from the array available at our friendly local HF?

I'm thinking a normal auto body hammer is not going to be nearly heavy enough.

[Gromit]

A few more photos

[Troy Sr]

A bed liner insert!!

[mongocanfly]

My ribs are wider than yours...I just used a piece of 2x2x1/4 tubing for a dolley and a 2lb hammer with a round head when i did mine...i wasn't looking for perfection...just trying to get the biggest dents out....it worked good.....I'm spraying bed liner in mine as well...

[twinturboc10]

I used a broken piece of hardened spring shank (about 3/4”x1-1/2”) from a field cultivator as a dolly where I had access, and a thinner piece of 3/16” ground to fit between the floor and cross sills where it wouldn’t fit. I used some sheet metal as shims there too. A pry bar between the sill and bed floor also works for initially working out the dents. I was able to use a long bar through the side of the sills on some dents. I also had a larger area between sills and 4-5 ribs wide that was about 1” low that required some creativity. I welded some tabs to floor then hooked to them with some vice grips hooked to a pry bar. I hung some weight on the other end and used a BFH from underneath to coax it back into place. The top side is not finished yet, but the bottom looks excellent with Raptor liner on it.