During the week, I started pulling the wood out of the bed.  Crawling around underneath the truck was an adventure in dirt.  The center three boards came

out with a fair amount of effort, but there was just too much chassis gear in the way to get the outside boards.

Also, there were issues like this:

I don't have the slightest idea why those pieces of wood are there.  The only thing that I can figure out is that the U-bolt that is holding the brake line is a little too big to snug up to the axle, so Grandpa stuck a couple of shims in there to tighten it up.

The solution is obvious!

Thanks to my neighbor Mark, 10 bolts later, the bed was off and the wood was out!

Of course, the big hitch in the plans here is that with the truck in a hundred pieces, the cars have to stay outside.  I think I need a bigger garage!

What's next?  The two big projects are getting the rust off of the frame (and the bed) and refinishing the wood.  The paint is really stuck on the wood, so I may just run the boards through a planer and take 1/32 of an inch off of each side.

Saturday turned into Sunday and the weather turned nice.  So, I took the rear bumper off and started working on the rust.  I used Naval Jelly on most of the exposed frame members.  It does strip paint as well as rust, though, so I had to be very careful near the cab.

With the rust gone, painting commenced.  Since we're not going to be driving the truck very much and because it isn't going to be any kind of show vehicle, a can of Rustoleum gloss black was fine for this job.  Actually, two or three cans would have been better.  Most of the frame is done, but the rear axle, driveshaft and part of the front crossmember still need finishing.  Nonetheless, it's a great improvement!

Also, I discovered that the primer that Dodge used to seal the wood slats in the bed penetrates very deep into the wood.  So, it looks like I'll just strip the paint with some chemical stripper, sand the wood and repaint it.  We'll save the fancy varnished finish for another time.