Got a small thing buggin' me on my 65 F250. The rear corners of the bed seem to be slightly sprung out. I do know the truck carried a heavy wood and aluminum shell for years with no tailgate and I'm theorizing that over time ....

That's just a guess tho. For all I know it may have come that way from the factory.

Driver's side is hardly noticable but on the passenger side it's sprung so far the gap runs from a 1/16th at the bottom of the tailgate to over a 1/4" at the top. It's so big you can see the latch screws in there thru the gap.

So I stuck an 1 1/2" square tube in the stake pocket to spread the load and pulling with a come-along from a hook down low on the other side, about all I accomplished was slightly distorting the pocket!

Better to live with the gap than rip the bed apart!

But if anyone has a better idea .....

Thanx.

 

A lot of hi end collision repair centers have
very sophisticated frame repair equipment.
These machines have lasers,computers and
hydraulics and I have seen them do unbelievable
"pulls". They do a lot of uni-body stuff so your
bedsides would probably be in their radar.

Good Luck!

 

I took a low tek route in fixing the bed side in my 79. Run a chain from tail gate catch on the bed to a solid object on the other side like around the bumper (I had a spair tire carrier bolted in the back of the bed on mine) so the chain runs from the top of the wide bed side to bottom of the other side. I then carefully "bounced" on the middle of the chain and pulled the side in line. Mine was out of line far enough the tail gate was not catching on one side. I hope this helps

 

What I did about 15 years ago, as a preventative move only ....

..... was first I took a 1/4" thick, 3" wide piece of steel that is the same length as the tailgate is and fastened it to the rear side of the last cross brace imediately behind the lower edge of the tailgate where the rib deflects back under the edge of the bed. The 1/4" thickness brought the surface out about even with the edge of the bed.

..... Second, I used some 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 1/8" wall angle and notched the lower end so I could fasten it to the inside rare corner boxes that run verticle and which support the bed side and latches, the flat that is formed by the notch is long enough to drop below the bed level and get to the lower edge of that 1/4" x 3" strip running crossways.

..... third, I cut some 1/8" thick triangles with two 45 degree angles and a 90 degree angle, I made them the big enough to gusset or brace from about 3" above the bed floor to the bottom of that same 1/4" thick strip, with the 45 degree slant in towards each other. I welded these triangles to the angles that I intended to bolt to the bed corner boxes.

I bolted the piece across the bottom and the verticle braced angles to the bed and each other using 3/8" bolts and carriage bolts, used fender washers inside the cavities behind the tailights, bolted through to the reinforcements where the bed sets on the frame as well.

Very very solid to this day, absolutely no give in my rear bed sides when the tailgate is down. I also plated the bed floor and front wall with about 11 guage sheet steel that was 5 feet wide so it extends over the lower edge of the galvanized inner bed sides and used a bunch of 5/16" carriage bolts and fender washers to fasten every few inches, I used over a gallon of some paint to paint under the plate, the original bed floor, and the top of the plate .... pooring it on .... then covered with a "under the lip" bed liner.

I did provide a couple generous drain holes up at the front of the bed through the plate over to each side and used some copper flared tubing to line the drain holes like big grommets so that water would drain all the waty through if it got in there.

Which is why, in part anyway, that I am goind to rivet new sides on with 3/16" stainless steel pop rivets (no blind holes) so I don't have to undo all that to get to the bed bolts.

 

Dang Man! That was 8-3/4 years ago and I was going to do those bedsides .... like that Spring! Well, I still have the truck and all the parts and now that I'm driving ity more, I've been catching up .... and those bed sides are still solid as rocks!