stepside or fleetside bed stock? anyway to tell?

[Vombrown]

My latest project 82 gmc k1500 has s flatbed. I am guessing it was offered with stepside or fleetside bed. I am leaning towards a simple restoration. Has saddle tanks on both sides. Anyway to tell if it was originally step or fleet? I know the vast majority were fleetside.

 

[diesel4me]

Unless you can find the original "build sheet" hidden somewhere in the truck,or track it down by the VIN #,probably you will not be able to tell which bed it came with--the VIN doesn't specify bed type or fleetside or stepside ..(from what I gathered reading about the VIN online)..the build sheet would likely say on it what bed it had...

Those may be found hidden in the seat springs,some trucks had them stuck to the drivers side inner fender,and I have seen a few on the gas tank,or behind it,stuck to the cab's rear wall..

I found the one for my van (what little was left of it) stuffed up inside the unibody "rail" near the sway bar!..most of it crumbled in my attempts to remove it unfortunately..

My '82 8 ft.Stepside had rare dual tanks and the filler neck hoses on the tanks are probably Stepside only--the rear tail lamp harness would be different than a Fleetside also--unfortunately those things have likely been deleted or butchered when the flat bed conversion was made..maybe..other than that the beds bolt up the same,so it would be hard to determine what one it had originally..

 

[Vombrown]

That's what I was thinking. I will be pulling the seat to look this week. I have found them there before. I would rather have a step bed but not sure how hard it will be to find a dual tank step.

 

[CK10]

My 85 had a dual tank step side bed originally, after replacing the wood floor I ended up swapping it for a fleet side bed and selling the step for almost nothing. You are correct about the filler necks, they are stepside specific (at least the hoses are, the metal tubes can be used on either but aren't "correct") and it shouldn't be too hard to find a dual tank bed, just make sure to get all the filler hoses and metal bed strips with it.

 

[Vombrown]

So for this model it will still have a wood bed? I found one locally that is a little earlier model with the tire cutout but I passed on it. It has a wood bed but no cutouts for filler necks.

 

[diesel4me]

My '82 GMC 8 ft. Stepside bed has a wooden floor,some of it has fallen thru up in the front end of the bed,I had to lay some sheet metal and aluminum diamond plate over it so things wont land in the street..
I'm not sure if they had metal floors in Stepsides ?..

My bed is getting pretty ripe,drivers side fender in stoved in from me backing into a pole while plowing,the steps are rotting,had to put some pieces of diamond plate running boards over them to beef them up enough so as not to fold over when I step on them--I'm not really thrilled with the size of the bed as far as cargo capacity either--it has a tool box and that leaves it with a 6 foot by 50" wide "cargo" area..cant fit much in it,including my riding mower..deck sticks out too far..

I have a flatbed I made I saved off a '77 GMC I had I may drag out of the woods and put on it--depending on if I feel the truck is worth the effort ..(pictured below, when it was built in 1996--does not look so pretty now!)..

 

[Vombrown]

I have a really nice flat bed on it now. It will stay until I can find s nice replacement. I bought this truck to best on and now it had taken a turn towards restoration. I often wonder why I do this stuff.

 

[CK10]

So for this model it will still have a wood bed? I found one locally that is a little earlier model with the tire cutout but I passed on it. It has a wood bed but no cutouts for filler necks.

Yes, all step sides had wood beds for this series of trucks, 81-87 trucks had different fuel fillers, tailights, and no turn signals in the fenders as compared to 73-80 step sides.

Ideally if you're looking for original to your truck parts you'll find an 81-87 bed, they're easily identified by the square fuel filler doors on the front of the fenders.

Any truck prior to 73 had the fuel tank in the cab and won't have fuel fillers in the bed at all

 

[campfire]

So for this model it will still have a wood bed? I found one locally that is a little earlier model with the tire cutout but I passed on it. It has a wood bed but no cutouts for filler necks.

That is exactly what I did, putting a '67 step side bed on my '83. Yes, the floors are all wooden. The earlier steps intrude into the saddle tank locations. I grafted in the steps from an '82 bed to accommodate the dual tanks. I would recommend replacing the filler hoses. I bought generic fuel hose and copper pipe elbows to mate my newer tanks to my older bed. I mounted the fleetside fillers directly in the fenders.

 

[campfire]

I have a few pictures of the build on my "big blue" thread. See link below. The first picture with all the colorful bodywork shows which pieces I spliced together to make it work.