I received a question on the website from someone doing a liftbed conversion on a 2000 S10 pickup. The question was whether or not you need to move the pickup bed back a half inch or so in order to clear the cab when lifting the bed.
My feeling is that if the hinges are mounted low it is not necessary to mount the bed back from its original position.
I explained that I didn’t intentionally mount the bed farther back but it took me three tries to get the hinges to work properly. The first time I mounted the bed in its original position and the first time I tilted it, it moved back more than an inch. The hinges I used just weren’t strong enough and the weight of the bed in the up position made everything settle.
The second time I used stronger hinges with 1/4 metal “caps” to prevent them from bending. It worked better but later when I mounted the gas lifts, the lifts added so much stress to the hinges and pickup bed, I had to do it a third time and add some extra braces under the pickup bed.
Gap between the pickup bed and cab.
The finished project looks like there is more room between the bed and cab as you can see in the first image.
Once it was finished the original mounting holes still align on the passenger side but the drivers side is about a half inch off. So the bed is not perfectly aligned but this doesn’t seem to cause any problems.
Closeup of pickup bed alignment on passenger's side.
Here, in the second image you can see the bolt holes still line up perfectly on the passenger side.
Closeup of pickup bed alignment on driver's side.
In the third picture you can see on the drivers side, the pickup bed is about a half inch farther back. So it’s not perfectly aligned. This was not done on purpose but it works.
Details of liftbed support
The final picture is taken from underneath the car with the pickup bed in the down position from the rear bumper looking forward. In this image, the arrow on the right shows the hinge with the metal “cap.” To the left is an arrow pointing to the support I had to add under the pickup bed. The bottom arrow shows the gas lift up by the rear wheel.
When I installed the gas lifts to help raise the bed and keep it up, the gas lifts were so powerful that when I tried to pull the bed back down, the bed wanted to flex. It was very old and beat up before I got it and some of the sheet metal was already cracked. Therefore, I added these metal support under the bed. The gas lifts are connected between the truck frame and the metal support rather than mounted to the pickup bed sheetmetal. This resolved the flexing problem.
There are some other images on the website which will give a better perspective of the gas lifts and mounting brackets.
I didn’t include pictures here of the locking mechanism. I got a hood latch and release cable from another S10 at the junk yard. I mounted it on the side of the frame on the driver side. I mounted the “pin” on the underside of the bed and mounted the lock on the frame. I ran the release mechanism under the floor. It comes out between the drivers door and the drivers seat. It’s easy to reach and works much better than I could have hoped. The safety release is reached between the bed and the cab.
I hope that helps a little bit and doesn’t create more questions than it answers.
