M37 Wooden Bed

[JStinson]

My "new" M37 is in great shape, except for the bed. The bottom is too far gone to patch, so it has to be redone alltogether. I found a replacement bottom from Midwest Military, but it was 400 + shipping. I did a little brainstorming and came up with this: Take up the old bottom and replace it with wood, the support beams are still workable, and it would look great and be a cheap way out. Tell me what ya'll think, has anyone here done this before?

Wes in GA.

[Gsmith]

Sounds reasonable to me, what type of lumber are you planning on using? I went with all "as original", but if you're not doing a restoration saving money makes sense.

[JStinson]

Pressure Treated

I'm planning on using pressure treated 2 x 6s probably. I thought it might look really great with just a natural wood colored bed, but the pressure treated stuff is going to darken up anyway, so I'm gonna go ahead and make the bed bottom OD Green just like the rest of the truck. I wish I could make it 100% original but I'm not as concerned with originality as I am functionality, I just want it to be able to wade through mud holes while towing the gates of **** and look good in the process.

[BobbyMike]

Hey Jstinson,
A little unasked for advice - you might want to consider using white oak (from a local sawmill) instead of PT. I've noticed a real degradation of the quality of available PT in the last few years (and sadly with most construction lumber). The manufacturers are using really low quality wood to make their PT lumber with.

You'll probably see the PT start to really show it's age in a few short years (1-3 depending on the weather).

White oak will hold up better to the elements and be more durable, and will definitely be more attractive. Buying it from a sawmill will be very cost effective.

roughsawn white oak:


sanded white oak:

[n1vsm]

WC-12 bed?

You may want to look into the construction of the 40's vintage WC-12 beds. They were made from oak planks with what can best be described as inverted shallow "U" channels running front to back bolted down over the seams. It has the same basic "texture" of the M37 bed. Unless you carry sand or gravel in the bed, the metal parts take most of the abuse, leaving the wood to survive a bit longer.

[Sickcall]

Pressure treated lumber is a lower geade material. The injection process leaves it very brittle and splintered. If you do any mill work on it you loose the pressure treating as it is only on the surface. Either use oak or pine if you budget dictates. Pine lasted 35 years in my old Chevy.

[JStinson]

Pressure treated lumber is a lower geade material. The injection process leaves it very brittle and splintered. If you do any mill work on it you loose the pressure treating as it is only on the surface. Either use oak or pine if you budget dictates. Pine lasted 35 years in my old Chevy.

Thanks, pine is super common and cheap around here (middle GA). I'll probably use that.

Thanks for the help.

[BobbyMike]

Thanks, pine is super common and cheap around here (middle GA). I'll probably use that.

Thanks for the help.

Do yourself a favor and try sourcing it from a local mill. The construction stuff is usually culled from younger trees (and lots of it is coming from Austria and other European countries. It's not uncommon to pick out a 2x4 that's got most of a ring inside of it.

[Doc Dave]

Some more semi-unsolicited advice-
Bobby Mike is right,
At a modern suburban-city lumber yard, you are going to see white pine for sale which is NOT want you want. The good southern yellow pine is used for treated lumber and its recent problems have been mentioned.
Remember, you live in the east where rot is a problem, so what you choose is very important.
Drive a little bit and visit a country sawmill. THere you can get good southern yellow pine (loblolly for example) or white oak which is even better. You can by it rought cut, which is what I wanted because I was going to stack it and air dry it, or you can get it planed.
Lumber from such a mill is also cheaper than places like Home Depot, Lowes, etc.
White oak from a country saw mill is what I am using in my civilian power wagon bed. Dodge used white oak for those and painted it black. Thats how they came from the factory.

[Gordon Maney]

Are you painting all surfaces of it black before you assemble it?

I wonder what would be a best from a durability point of view to use on the white oak.

[MoparNorm]

Thanks, pine is super common and cheap around here (middle GA). I'll probably use that.

Thanks for the help.

It's a fair amount of work, you may as well do it right the first time and use White Oak, painted black. That's what Dodge used, that soft and rot prone pine will see you doing the same task again in a very few years. For just a few dollars more you can use white oak and be done with it...for at least 20 years....rot prone pine, say that fast three times....= )

[splummer]

doc dave

i dont buy wood at lowes or home depot.quility very poor. i like to by from our local sawmill, alot better grade and price sometimes better. i may have to wait sometimes for an order thought, my 55 will have a flat bed made from oak that was cut from my land. steve from western maine

[Gsmith]

I wish that around here we had the local saw mill you guys talk about.

[MoparNorm]

True mills are getting few and far between. It's one of the many reasons that wood prices are so volatile. Most Mills have been shut down by environmental regulations which have dramatically increased the cost of business. However there are still many "mom and pop" lumber yards that do a bit of milling and cutting to order and that use Industry Standard lumber grading. Lowe's and Depot and probably Menard's do NOT use real Industry Standard grading, in fact if building inspectors were doing their jobs properly, most of that "homeowner" wood would be rejected for construction, "Builders Best" and "Quality" are NOT legal grades. Lumber grading goes by WCLB standards such as Structural, Select Structural, #2 and #1. Unless you see a Lumber Bureau Stamp alongside the Lumber Grade Stamp, it's not building quality. Those "big box" pretend stamps are meaningless, the lumber is fit for only building shacks in Tijuana.

[splummer]

Gsmith

iam sorry, move to maine and then you can have it. we have a few around here,the prices ,like i said may be cheaper at times,the mill i deal with is about 20 miles away.the only draw back to dealing with local sawmills is when you go there there is no ware house ,you sometimes have to wait for them to cut what you need and then you have to wait for it to fry and then you have to plane ,joint it. so sometimes iam at the mercy of store bought lumber. i have always been satisfied with the mill i deal with. when we built our house i had a wood miser sawmill to cut most of my material and was able to plane most of it myself resulting in a huge savings steve from western maine