Gary Seymour wrote:Congradulations on a nice find! Looks like a solid and complete truck so it will be nice to work with. Tough 4X4! Personally, I would keep the bed, I think the "wrong beds" look tough, especially on a 4X4.
Regarding the bed, I guess it would depend on where you plan to take the rebuild. If you plan to stay mostly stock, then I'd agree with Gary; keep the 'wrong bed'. It's correct & original and looks 'right' to those that know. Whereas, when I see a '65 4x4 with a 4x2 bed on it - I immediately think that its had a chassis swap, that the 4x4 chassis isn't original to the truck. But, if you're planning to do a bunch of customizing or change lots of it away from the stock look, then the bed swap would fit into the overall project.
Another reason to keep the plow operable is, how many '65s do you see with a workable snow plow? I've not seen ONE around here! I suggest you locate a plow for it, consider putting some Western mirrors on it, locate a vintage amber bubble off of some old county plow truck, build a wooden tool box with a weather-proof tilt-down lid (below the box line, so you wouldn't see it at a glance) that I'd put a couple of long straps, a good snow shovel, a few blocks of wood, a couple of short chains, etc. in the box and you'd have one SWEET SLICK work horse that can still contribute to earning its keep! You don't have to get all crazy with doing a lot of plowing, but if you've never had a snow plow truck, I'm here to tell ya - they sure are handy to have around. Last but not least, you can also be the "Hero in that old Ford", "Big Bette to the Rescue", to "Save the Day" for your friends that fall off the road, get buried down in the parking lot, etc. Young neighborhood kids (and even us 'older kids') would be talking about seeing it out during a blizzard event, which in my world - I always thought was a cool way to share the smiles that these ol' Slicks give us.
The biggest deterrent for using it for snow plowing would be that it would be exposed to salt...I HATE salt because it eats vehicles! However, if you do a good job of cleaning the undercarriage and applying some protection to it AND limit the amount of salt exposure it would see...... I think it would make you a fine snow-fighting work horse Slick!
Just my

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BarnieTrk
