I was pretty happy with the bed rail angle, and it looked great until I looked straight at the side. I wasn't real happy with the gap between the bed and the cab. At this point the bed sides can still shift forward (or rear ward for that matter) on the bed floor, but the floor would be a lot more difficult to move on the frame. If I wanted to close that gap, that would be the time to do so. With the bed sides clamped to the tubing, I could slide the bed forward to get an idea how much I was going to move the bed sides.

I still had the front of the bed sitting here. The truck came without a tailgate, so my plan was to use the front of the Dakota bed for the front panel, then use the 49's front bed panel for a tailgate. Earlier in the project I stumbled across a newer Dodge step side tailgate for $75, but it was pretty beat up. The newer tailgates were wider then the 49 was, so I could cut the messed up ends off. The height was also higher then I was going to need, which would allow me to cut off the messed up top and bottom rails on the late model tailgate. $75 was a bargain for one of these tailgates, even in this condition. Since I bought the tailgate, this opened up the option to modify the original front panel.

The original 49 bed has the side rails angled out and up at a 45 degree angle for the top 6" or so. Then the front panel, and the tailgate would match up with the bed sides at the lower edge of the angle, making the bed sides higher and wider then the bed is (you can see that angle in the last pic of the last installment under the tubing). I intend to put a bed cover on this truck and I want the cover to go over top of the rails, so I wanted to fill that gap. The Dakota frame kicks up enough that you loose a lot of bed depth on the 49 bed sides (the bed floor is about 7" - 8" higher on the bed sides then it would have been on the 49 frame). What that means for me is I can shift the front panel forward, raise it up level with the top of the rails, and still have about 3" of metal left to attach to the floor. One big advantage of moving the front of the bed forward, it would allow me to put the battery in front of the fuel fill door.
Pic 1, The "new" $75 tailgate. You can't see how messed up it really is.
Pic 2, The original 49 bed front panel bent to its new shape.
Pic 3, The gap between the center of the bed and the cab. It hard to read, but it is 1.5", or about 1/2 of what it was before the bed side shift forward.
Pic 4, The future home of the battery.