CREWCAB LONGBED TO SHORT

[80crewcabdude]

Dammit..now ya all did it. Turned me from a lurker to a member...LOL

Up till this topic i've been lurking and learning and getting some good ideas from you geniuses. I have been working on a 80 4x4 3/4 ton crew cab that was rescued from a junkyard. It's taken me almost a year getting the body ready to paint. Had the usual rusty floor pans, rusty cab mounts, dented rockers and really messed up roof.

Got all it all straight and ready to paint, but one thing has been messin with me head. What to do with the bed. Go aluminum flat bed? Go with the longbed it came with and turn it into a dually or make it a shortbed. I've thought long and hard about the shortbed idea just because it's unique and for some reason the longbed crew cab just looks out of proportion to me. And not to mention I wasn't sure if I could trust a truck with a cut and welded up frame.

I was gonna take the puss way out and just use the longbed and make it a dually. Even got all the bed ready for paint. After seeing that red beauty and reading your post has me thinking about the shortbed.

Now i'm a gonna have to shorten the bed and redo all the body work that I did on the bed and get a better welder /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

But that red truck sure does look perty. Me want...me want big time /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Oh BTW...hello peoples

Ok I'm off to day dream about a shortbed crew cab.

 

[edlavarreda]

make sure you post pics when done.

 

[Skroo]

Why not cut the rear of of the frame and move the spring perches forward? No splicing of the frame. Then you'll have to drill holes for the bumper and bed bolts and install a fuel tank. The only hard part would be centering the axle, and that's just taking good measurments, something you would have to do if you spliced it.

 

[BadDog]

It's a bit more complex than that, but not terribly bad. You would basically need to do a shackle flip just to keep the spring from tipping way forward turning the pinion into the ground. The frame has an arch to give the axle clearance when at stock height. The mounts for the spring are on either side of the arch. When you move the axle forward, the front mounts stay about the same, but the rear spring mounts go up about 4-5” or so. This screws up the spring geometry and pinion angle. With a shackle flip you could get that straightened out easily enough but with less lift than you would normally get from a shackle flip.

Than the bed cross supports would need changing to fit the contour of the frame. Normally you have tall supports on each side of the hump, and a shorter pair on top of the hump. Mounting a short bed would require channeling the rear tall mount (under the tailgate) and putting a body mount type spacer under the front cross brace.

Short bed tank too, or go to a K5/Sub style tank.

Over all it should be a pretty straightforward job.