Part Three: Tailgate And Sides
It's time to install the tailgate skin. Grant's combo roll pan/skin part was a near-perfect fit to the bed sides, and the body lines were in the right spots. The piece only needed minor grinding along the side edges to make it fit between the bed sides.
Just a little smoothing with an angle-grinder was all that was needed for the Grant's skin to slide right into place. | 
1. Once the skin was tack-welded into place, it was clear how well it aligned with the factory sheetmetal. |  |
2. We decided early on with this project that we wanted to round the inside corners of the bed, and we wanted the front and rear bulkheads to match the width of the bedrails. This required us to weld in new bracing to widen the top edge of the tailgate skin and the front bulkhead, which we'd be able to weld the new sheetmetal paneling to. A straight edge was used to make the bracing level and square to the bed, while providing enough of a recess for sheetmetal to sit on top of and to remain flush to the bedrails. | 
3a. To maintain the width of the bedrails, we had to cut out the rear stake pockets and re-contour the upper portion of the sheetmetal. (3a, 3b, 3c.) | 
3b. |
3c. | 
4a. The front bulkhead has a rounded header up top, which we also cut out and replaced with rectangular-shaped tubing that matches the width of the bedrails. It was amazing to see the amount of dirt that came out of the header from the years of work this truck put in at a winery. (4a & 4b) | 
4b. |
5a. Making the front bulkhead cap out of 1x3-inch rectangular tubing was much easier than bending sheetmetal to match the bedrails, and it looked right at home once the welds were ground down. (5a & 5b) | 
5b. | |