2004 original bed and a tailgate. Dirt cheap or free. Rusty, rot behind rear wheels. New England NH

Hi all.

I recently swapped out the silver stock Taco short bed which has surface rust, and paint bubbles around wheel arches and small holes rot behind the wheel wells.

The sleeve inserts for the bolts for all bolt in spots (4 + 2 rears) are fine, except for rear (middle) driver one which is destroyed. The insert broke free with a impact gun finally and then tore and broke the rib around it. It can still be used and gripped with a different style bolt / receiver, but the threaded insert area is just gone.
Also, with all the manhandling I had to do getting it out, it broke off even more rusty sheet metal behind the rear wheels.

OH. And I was so pissed off at the rot / rust on the rest of the truck fighting me on every simple step... well, I smacked the bed with a sledgehammer in anger - uh, twice in the flat horizontal base inner bed part (not outer fenders etc...) Has two small indents in it now.

So there you have it. A not great shape bed body.
It's been stored for about a month in a garage and they want it gone.
It's physically located in central southern NH (between Manchester and Nashua, NH), but it could also maybe be driven down to the greater Boston area and / or Cape Cod for someone without much fuss.

Please let me know if any interest. I'd hate to see it go to scrap metal, but it needs to go quite soon. Like probably in a week, or maybe I can eke out 2 weeks, at most. It needs to go for a walk and not come back very soon

Pics of grey bed. The tailgate is actually black. See earlier in this thread, I did a little mix and match with the original. The black tailgate is fair and has a few small holes of rot in it I hadn't noticed before but did removing it.

Also, the cable tailgate stays were chopped by the parts dismantler, so the cable stays are gone for the tailgate.

 

More pics:

 

Haha fun story!

I'd take the flares if you end up scrapping it or you wanna pull them off

 

I had been thinking about pulling those flares off. First, not metal parts anyway. Second, the black bed I installed was a '98 and didn't have the flares on them. And the '04 silver body has them upfront. So it's a bit unbalanced looking. But wasn't sure it was worth the effort, and the car scraper guy said flares help hold in the water there and therefore promote rot...
I will let you know if I pull them off!

 

I'd be interested in the flares if the other guy doesn't end up getting them!

 

More pics. Did I mention FREE? She ain't no beauty queen I will concur about that.
2nd pic also shows that insert area that got torn about.
Near last pic I am pointing in one pic to a small rot gap around the gas filler / driver wheel lip area.