Aftermarket pickup bed

L

Lee

Junior Member
Any body have any observations on the after market pickup bed that Snyders sells? Any body have a OEM for sale instead?
 
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The reproduction beds are pretty good. There is a small difference in that the channels that hold up the wood are reversed, and the holes for the stake sockets are round instead of square. All in all, a nice alternative to a rusted, beat up original.
 
I looked closely at a Brookville bed. It was pretty good, with square pockets and a sharp "Ford" on the tailgate. But the rivets were not fully rounded, which bugged me. Instead of nice round heads, they are all little stumps sticking too high over the sheet metal. To place it in judging, they would all have to be heated and bucked again. I have not seen what Snyders sells. Anyone know who made it?
 
There are probably a couple dozen things wrong for judging purposes,as Rick(or Rich) from Brookeville told me years ago,these are replacement beds,and while we could put hundreds more into making them correct,the vast majority of buyers will not go the extra money for the correctness.I have bought three or four,and the guy I bought them from said he sells four out of five to street rodders.They are extremely well built,and it is hard to imagine anyone being unhappy with one once they mount it.He did tell me another thing,the primer they put on is just to protect it.He told me they do NO metal prep,as most are modified in one way or another before they are finished.(rodders again)I bought one in knocked down form,and assembled it myself.One quarter the shipping cost.The first bed I bought was made by Mack Hils back in the early-mid 80's.At least,I think he made them.I have a real decent original bed here to go on an early 31 I am building.It has minor dents and puckers,lots of extra holes for hooks and sideboards,but an extremely nice bed for a New England truck.You have to remember we used trucks here until the bedsides laid over the tires.The bodyshop was looking at it for a customer,telling him as good as it looked the bed was a time consumer to make it straight again.When he found a new one was $1300. he refused to even talk about it anymore.When he added it up to fix it,$100.to me to blast it,two days by his man for bodywork @$75.per hour,wood kit for $125.bed strips,then reassembly,they drove to the vendor and hauled home a new one.
 
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