patch holes in bed

[67RED]

hey guys, hoping some one can help with a problem. i am replacing my flairside bed with fleetside bed. the bed is in pretty good shape except for a few small holes about the size of a finger. i was wondering the best way to go about patching these few holes up. and i am planning on installing herculiner. when i get the bed repaired. any help is appreciated. THANKS

[binder56jd]

sticht them shut w/ welder-jd

[Sharkdance]

If thier too big to weld shut just cut some small patches and weld those in directly over the hole. Dont worry about it being pretty cuz once you grind em down and cover them with Huculiner they wil just look like old scars for and old truck to be proud of.

[CJ,s 67 F100]

I had a body man tell me to fill the holes in the side of the bed when I took the chrome off to just bend a 1" square piece of sheet metal to fit the inside of the bed perfectly and then apply some 4 min. JB weld to it and use masking tape to hold it on until dry. Worked good for me and with the Herculiner in the bed you cant see the sheet metal pieces.

[michaelbrainard]

similar but different...I guess.

I removed all of the aluminum trim from my 69 f100 ( because it was all trashed and I didn't want to spend the $$ to buy reproduction parts..yikes ) so the sides of my doors and box are covered with small holes. On the back side of the panels, I heavily suffed the sheetmetal with a grinder....then cust small pieces if bi-axial fiberglass sheets ( 1.5" square about )...mixed up some resin and applied to the area. Once cured, I used a small amount of filler to complete the repair. I don't have access to a decent wire welder to fill these holes, nor did I want to subject the panels to that much heat, fearing I would distort them. Plus, if in the future I stumble across replacement trim parts, finding and punching out the holes again will be simple. Anyone else done this before?

[67RED]

thanks for the info guys. ill let you know what i do. and maybe a few pics. thanks again

[19674x4]

i did this to a budies truck last year, we took the plasma cutter and cut a square hole just bigger than the oriogional hole, then put 18 guage steel cold rolled steel plate over it then tacked it into place, then welded the seams, then took the angle grinder to it, put some sealent on the inside, and repainted it-smooth as a babies bottom.