Wood Bed, Is it rare?

[Bungy]

I have a 78 K20 longbed and the box floor is wood. How rare is this? I have never seen another and started wondering when two guys at a swap meet noticed it and said they had never seen one either.

[75]

I believe that a wood bed floor IS pretty rare (Only one I can recall seeing was on a '73 crewcab farm truck) on a '73/'87 Chevy truck.

Although I don't consider myself to be an "expert" on Chevy trucks, I don't think that many of them were built with wood floors - especially by '78.

What sort of shape is yours in? Stepside or fleetside? Wood bed kits are available if you need to repair/restore yours - I picked up a catalogue from a parts dealer here in Canada and saw them listed there.

[Bungy]

Mine is a fleetside. The wood is in pretty good shape but one plank is broken. The only wood kits I have seen are for stepside. What company or catalog are you refering to?

[75]

Hi Bungy - the company whose catalogue I picked up is called Antique Chevrolet Parts, they are located in Toronto Canada.

They show in their listing 2 choices of bed wood kits for '73/'80 Fleetside (longbox): Yellow pine or Oak. (Oak, of course, being more $$$)

Speaking of $$$, the way ours is right now you could probably buy your wood kit there, pay for shipping, and still come out ahead.

[TLS]

Bungy,

I may be wrong, but the only 73-87 wood beds were on stepsides. Someone must have just bolted some boards on over the original rusted metal bed.

Unless there was an option that I don't know about. Do you have a RPO # for it?

[Bungy]

I'll have to check for the RPO. It should be on the glove box door, right? The wood bed looks 100% factory to me. There is no metal under it. Bungy

[Chuck Smith]

Dixie, you are wrong. It was an option, and my 77 K/20 fleetside had it. I wish it still did, but I too couldn't find a wood kit, but more so than the wood, it was the edges of the bed floor, made of steel, that I couldn't find. The "strips" that hold the wood in, are the same as step side beds. The reason (I was told) GM offered a wood bed floor on a fleetside, was to target farmers and ranchers. Livestock, has a hard time standing on a steel bed floor, but you could put livestock on a wood bed floor, and move it from pasture to pasture, or anywhere else for that matter. YOu can fit more livestock in a fleetside, than a step side.

The GM Factory RPO for the floor, is E81, Wood Floor Pickup Box.

I have a list of RPO codes on my website, if anyone needs some.

~Chuck
www.chuckschevytruckpages.com