And here is the little extra you are either going to like or dislike depending on your perspective. This is a 48" hi-Lift jack. I use these things and they are a must for recovery and some maintenance. I was wondering where I might attach it when that vertical bar showed up...problem solved!

I had to slice apart that side panel to get the vertical bar to level. No big deal, I planned on plating over that panel with a couple plies of 10 gage to get it very strong while fighting cracking by using independent plies in lieu of one thick piece of steel

I knew you were anti block, just wondered.

Will you add a flap to back of the bumper? Heck with the mud on the farm and kia parts you  could be hauling a couple hundred lbs in that cavity!

JR, I think I'm going to punch some 2" holes in it in places to allow stuff to pass through and me access to hose out the inside cavities

Are you taking frame flex into account, I am thinking your bumpers are going to kiss the sheetmetal when flexed out like on a majorly washed out fire road.

I don't think so
Frame flex occurs along the longitudinal axis of the vehicle (Front to back)
The bumper attachment points are arranged in a vertical fashion so they act more like a slice of a long bar. The whole "Slice" will react the same. If the frame moved independently of the bed, then body mounts would be torn and see cracks, but that never happens.
If the bed twisted it would do something called "Oil-Canning" which I am all to familiar with having flown the chinook. Take a soda can (Oil can of earlier times) and twist either end in opposite directions. The force manifests in slanted lines of "Twist" in the skin. The skin actually ripples up. Depending on how resilient the metal is it either recovers or eventually cracks (Chinooks)
Truck beds don't do that. The most they do is try to fold in on themselves at the tailgate which is their weakest point. This upright of mine will serve to reinforce that area, and the steel top halo likely really stiffened up how the bed might twist anyway.

No, I don't think twisting will be a real problem. Also keep in mind, my frame has several more cross members that the truck never had. It has the rear electrical compartment box. It has that thick wall rear water/alcohol tank boxing up the entire rear of the frame. It has a new transfer case cross member, it has the structure for the rear anti-torque bar bolted in. The weak area of the frame in the hump has a steel plate bolted over it, the front of the frame is boxed in and on and on.

Most of that would have to go. I might would leave the boomerang antenna. I was thinking more like a combination of these two.
http://www.adpost.com/us/vehicles/1041643/
http://www.autosbychoice.com/1981_GMC_CK%203500%20Series_Fredericksburg_VA_220192501.veh

I love the first except for the flatbed and the second is so militant, it almost looks terrorist!

Nothing better than a garden at some place other than mine. While growing up it was my job, after my folks planted close to half an acre, to water, weed, thin, harvest, pack the jars, and watch the canner. Just when the stuff was ready to pick the prices dropped  at the market for fresh picked out of the garden products. Go fishing or swimming in the lake, sure right after spending the day taking care of the garden. I might grow a few corn plants and one or two tomato plants now, but a garden....I have better things to do with my time. But, times are not quite as tight now either.

Bob,

Me^^^^ Same thing

Dad had between a quarter and a half acre of strawberries amongst the rest of the garden. My chore was weeding, picking berries, pulling up the runners and organizing them into a row and best of all, guard duty!

That's how I learned to shoot accurately. I'd sit for hours out there under a gumball tree on a homemade picnic table with a copy of lord of the rings and my trusty Crossman 760 Powermaster. When those starlings or blackbirds came in, I'd shoot em'
I wasn't allowed to shoot the Robins, Cardinals, of Blue Jays, but I'd have to say I stretched that rule just a bit from time to time! ;-)

She lost the baby.

She is recovering

I'm going to do something cool with that up-right, just wait...I think you'll like it.

So that was what I had time to get done today. So ended build day 273 for Square D

This protrusion along with the side plate will serve as the mount for the receiver tube of the swing away base mount

Next, its time to box in and reinforce the right bumper wing to make it more or less immovable.

I cut a large piece of steel plate and welded it to the underside contour of the bumper wing.

Remember those two bolts I placed in the bed top halo?

Well, it's time to put them to work

And that seemed to fit well enough

Soooo,

I cut it off!

And Yes, the tailgate closes and opens just like normal

The two "W's"

Water

Weeds

Have fun!

well since he lives closest to you, have you checked on him lately?  hows he doing?

Yea, I've checked on him.
It would be inappropriate of me to say his wife has beaten him again and he is in the middle of a pool install. A pool surrounded by oak and hickory trees, in the forest, with herds of Racoon, deer, chipmunks, snakes, and who knows what trapsing through the property!

I wouldn't want to paint a picture of my mighty warrior friend having given in to something as foolish as an unmaintainable pool in the middle of a forest just cause the woman beats him. I won't point out any of that because despite his obvious lack of fortitude and giving in, it would make him look, well, weaker I suppose. I give him a lot of latitude (Because of the Blackhawk thing) but I would have thought he could have saved all that money. Might as well have built the pool in the middle of a cow pasture, but, hey, I'm not talking about all this.

No, we won't discuss any of these poor choices, we'll just go on as if no loss of dignity or position as the leader of his household ever occurred!

Other than that, he's fine!

My wife tells me I'm backwoods country all the time. Funny thing is she uses my silly little phrases all the time and acts more like me the longer we're together. Took me 15 years to get her where she is. Another 15 and she'll be fully converted.

Haaaa!
Same thing here!
She is not only using my phrases, "Lost as last year's easter egg," and a few others

AND

She now claims they were her "Kentucky-girl" phrases all along, that I ADOPTED FROM HER!

She's too pretty to argue with, so I let it go

Just drive it another year or so then paint it OD green. Scratches add character.

Man if you only knew

I've wanted to paint that thing OD for some time, but the M.R.S. unit is really against that idea.

She said she looks hillbilly enough driving around in the truck the way it is. Funny, but the concept never occurred to me!

???Does the tailgate open?

Yep, sure does

I'm not really one to get excited about cosmetic stuff, but this is still a pretty new truck and still only has some 47,000 miles. So I started looking at the scratches which are EVERYWHERE thanks to that unforgiving farm "road"

Those 35's look tiny!

That truck is begging for some 38's! or even 40's

Well, I couldn't stand looking at Shawn's rear cover rusting, so I got on it and prudied it all up again!

Pac Air, a Canadian company makes excellent air bags. I purchased a replacement unit directly from them. They are friendly as well!

Here's my recommendation for fittings: Trash that junk AirDog supplies and get yourself a simple 3/8" brass barb or nipple fitting. By using that, it has a smaller base circle and therefore the socket hex which is going to leak, can be accessed

I am pointing to that pesky pipe plug in one of the photos

Today I decided to tear into this Air Dog 165 (again) to see what's wrong with it this time.

It started leaking, from up on top somewhere, so I am betting on a failed O-ring or something complicated like that. No chance it would be a loose filter or something simple.

This Air Dog is a poor product plain and simple. I will not endorse it in any manner at all. When I first installed it (New) I chased a pesky leak. Turned out to be this 1/8" pipe thread plug with a socket head. Nice thing about it is that you have to pull out the line sitting right beside it to get at it. Strike one for poor engineering. Someone could have moved it over 2mm and not have required introducing another leak to fix that leak.

Now a lot of people have had that hex leak, so that is a systemic problem with the product.
When I pulled the main line to get to the little plug, you guessed it, I had to drop the whole thing...more work!

Wlee later on one then both of the 3/8" pipe fittings started seeping, then leaking. I sealed them (Again) with quality Teflon tape. Then the motor quit. Then Air DOg would not warranty it and I had to spend another $200+ dollars on a motor that failed inside 40,000 miles!

Real piece of junk, this Air Dog, and no, I don't like it!

So a couple weeks ago, while driving back from the farm, I am smelling diesel fuel. Yep, Air Dog again!
So I just unplugged it and ran around with a light pedal, until a few days ago when the motor would not start for about 30 min. I had to crawl underneath and plug in the motor to get the engine running, then leak a puddle of fluid all over the parking lot.

So today I decided to undo everything that those idiots did with this unreliable product. Basically, replace the fittings with my own, seal the thing with my O-rings and so forth.

I discovered the little pipe plug was seeping again, the big supply line fitting was leaking and the pump itself was leaking. Additionally that expensive blue hose they supplied, now 3 years old is all cracked, dry rotted and peeling... What a bunch of junk!

Pulling the motor off again, I discovered the failed O-ring. It looks like an installation error, so that is on me, but it lasted since early winter, why did it fail now?

Jumping ahead possibly....  Cut outs for led lights in rear bumper?

I think so

In those flat panels that just went in