[chrisser]

My buddy awoke one morning to find the entire bed of his Toyota pickup had been stolen

I bought an old Ford Ranger awhile back - a 1987. Bed's a bit rusty. Even if Ford had the besides available, I probably couldn't afford them. Aftermarket only sells patch panels for certain portions. Here in NE Ohio, every other truck has the same rust.

So I've been hitting the local junkyard for bed parts and sectioning out pieces as I find them. Actually going to be welding a good part of it together tonight.

Anyhow, long story short, I've pulled about 5 different beds to get various parts. First one took well over an hour, but now I can have it off in 15 minutes and this is with rusty fasteners. On a newer truck, I could probably have it unbolted in 5 or 10 minutes with the proper sockets and a speed wrench. All I'd need is a trailer to haul it away on and another guy (maybe a couple guys on a FS longbed) to help me lift it off.

It's kinda scary in a way how easily you can take the bed off a pickup considering what they cost.

And, as an added bonus, once the bed's off, it's almost trivial to unbolt and haul away the gas tank(s) too...

That said, with a hard, locking tonneau cover and a locking tailgate, it would be much more difficult to accomplish without a bit more knowledge, time and probably more noise.

[GBA]

Thanks for the very helpful posts.

After being ripped off a few times, home burglaries, storage lockers, vehicle break-ins, attempted car thefts, etc., one begins to see one's things as a criminal sees them, but I hadn't thought about the bed or even looked at it that way before now.

Wow...all too easy. Thanks for the change of perspective.