Wide blue tape was applied over the hole and outlined with a sharpie. Overlap the tape about 1/2 way on the next piece so it can be removed as one piece.
Lay the outline on your metal and cutaway the tape so it is the size of your filler piece.
Cut the metal with whatever means you have. I used a grinder with a 4.5"" cut off wheel. I used magnets to hold it to the hole.
It took several trimmings to have it fit good. I used a sharpie to color in where it needed to be trimmed then used the grinder to trim it. I also put a slight bend in it to match the countour of the bed using a hammer.
OOPS! Too much heat grinding the metal down for welding? Look above the filler and you see the outlinge of a warp in the bed. It wasn't there before. Heat and sheetmetal equals warpage. Be careful. take your time.
I slowly tacked one at a time, moving around a lot to spread out the heat.
And slowly tacked...
and slowly tacked until it was completely filled.
After grinding the welds down. this is what it looked like.
