Corner, Bows and Stakes restoration

[3rdmdqm]

Well my cargo bows and hardware were shot so I decided to restore them. My stakes were rotted out so I had a buddy of mine make new ones out of oak and I painted them. The steel corners were in pretty bad shape so I stripped them with a grinder wire brush to bare metal and repainted them. The top bows weren't too bad off, although weathered pretty bad. These were power washed down to bare wood and given a good going over with new paint and a paint roller. Here are the finished results so far.

 

[3rdmdqm]

Here are some additional. The old girl should should be pretty happy with the new hardware on her back.

 

[3rdmdqm]

For anyone interested, sizes for the uprights/stakes were:
45" long
2 3/8" wide
7/8 " thick

I took the cheap way out and took a piece of peeling OD paint from the truck to Walmart, they put it in their handy dandy color match analyzer machine and pretty much matched the paint perfectly. Used a gallon of exterior grade latex, took about a 1/2 gallon to do everything with two coats with a small paint roller, and that was doing 5 additional spare/extra uprights to boot.

New stainless steel bolts and washers which were spray painted to match. Size of bolts:
5/16" X 1 1/2" coarse thread stainless steel hex head bolts
5/16" stainless steel washers

 

[3rdmdqm]

I do have one question. In photo 6, the one that shows the metal corner with the metal bracket/clip to secure the cover straps offset from the center of the ends. Which way does the metal corner go on the upright, with the center metal bracket/clip closer to the upright or the top bow? Or does it even matter? I'm thinking if you put the longer end over the upright, you could move the height of the cover up and down slightly if you added holes, however seems like more work than they would have gone through. Anyone know if there is a specified way or just preference? I have no clue.