swapping RH fuel hole bed for a LH fuel door bed

[eazychevy78]

I have seen some posts on this subject, but none of them really answer the questions I have. I have a 78 swb truck and it has the fuel filler door on the RH side. My bed is rotted beyond repair and I have found a bed with the fuel filler door/hole on the LH side. Has anyone here done this to let me know what exactly I need to do to make this happen? Thanks.

[80stepsideguy]

Welcome to the forum from another fellow floridian.

What you`ll have to do is remove the metal around the gas door and the gas door as well and then transfer it to the other side and put a piece of metal where the door you removed and smooth it out.And then just weld the section you cut out and smooth it in to the bed side.Take about a couple of afternoons but be worth it ..

thanks
Pat

[Captkaos]

The bed difference is round hole vs square door?
Swapping beds is just a matter of unbolting the old one and bolting on the new one.  If you are wanting to use the new gas tank location technically you should move the gas tank to the new side.  Gas brackets need to be flipped, tank is the same for both sides.  Sending unit is side specific, so you need to get a new one, filler neck and hose it side specific, so you need those.  The later filler necks have a different size hose so a 1978 hose won't fit a 84 filler and vise versa..

the other option is to rig up a filler to the opposite side...

[1979C20]

Move the tank to the other side and use the filler neck from the new bed?

[eazychevy78]

Thanks for the replies guys, the bed I'm getting is off a junk truck so I'm gonna get the filler hose and maybe the sending unit and everything else I need to make this work depending on the shape it's in. I really want the fuel door to be on the LH side for ease of fueling. I'm also thinking about relocating the fuel door to the inside of the bed on the front of the wheel well. Let me know what y'all think.

[audrima]

I have a 84 bed on my 78. when my father and grandfather put it on they just shortend the hose.... of course the bed is a duel tank bed so it had the round 78 style fuel hole on the right side so it was just bolting it up ^_^ going to move mine to the left side though. so thanks for the info


Mariah

[Cabcorner]

I replaced the box on my 80 K-20 with one from an 86.
I remember a couple of issues. I had greased the tank before trying to Install it and was trying to line up the bolts when I realized the staggered nuts on one of the brackets wouldn't line up on the other side of the frame. I had to move the nuts to the other holes in the bracket. The other issue was that there was no crossmember to run the fuel lines on. I made my own out of a galvanized sign Post. Funny thing I don't remember changing the sending unit. I think I was able to make the old one work.

[Cabcorner]

I remembered one more thing , 2 of the bed mount holes were different. I think I had to drill the frame.

[chevymanrob]

good info. i didnt realize that there was no D/P tanks. so i can just swap mounting bracket arrangements and direction of the sender and its all the same. luckily for me my donor truck and keeper are both 84s so no weirdness with interchangeability.