The exterior of the box is very straight. It has obviously never been in any accidents. The entire truck (cab and box), never showed any signs of previous damage or body work. There's just that pesky rust, (and loads of it).

After cutting out the floor I found that several frame rails were badly rusted. They will each have to be removed when the box moves into phase 2 and begins getting it's structural integrity reshaped. During this phase of the restoration I am primarily concerned with what I have to work with.

The overall structural integrity of the box was very poor. Some of the rear frame rails for the bed were completely rusted away and missing altogether. Luckily the parts truck has it's box fairly in-tact. It is also too far gone to be of any use in a reconstruction sense, however it's body lines, shape, and viewing reference will be invaluable.

The floor was far to costly to fabricate at a metal shop, and there were problems with matching the peaks and valleys of the floor's ridges. This was solved by ordering in the floor of a 1972 Dodge truck. The floors are very, very close. With some minor cuts the '72 floor will just drop right in. It is luckily bigger, (by only an inch), in most areas and it matches the look of the '70 floor very nicely.

See last picture for the tailgate.