I go lucky... mine lines up nicely!

 

Yesterday, I noticed that my bed is out of alignment and saw this thread today. SCrew, factory bed liner, so same problem as OP. I am not sure if I want to try to deal with it, take it to the dealer, or just let it go. It is not really noticeable, but of course, is to me now that I have discovered it.

 

Go to your dealership first and see what they say. They should fix it. I didn't go to the dealership, bc I didn't want to make the long trip. It was easy to fix by myself. The factory sprayed in bed liner was the only complication, but I handled it with no problem.

 

does the bed being off cause an optical allusion looking down each side, mines off and almost looks like passenger side windows line up with bed, driver's side looks like frame could be bent.

 

Not sure about this, but I didn't feel like mine was bent, just not perfectly aligned. On mine you can look down the side it is closer, and it appears that the back of the cab and the front of the bed are pretty much lined up. On the other side, if you look down it, the bed is a little off to the side. I ultimately didn't do anything about it, and probably still won't (I've got about 4k miles on the bumper to bumper warranty left).

 

I guess I join the club. Wouldn't have noticed it unless the tonneau cover installer hadn't. I took it back to him to try and get the gap out of that side. Once you see it, its obvious. Yes, factory spray in bed liner.

The gaps are good both sides. There is no adjustment up and down as I tried. Took the right side T bolts loose (T50) and tried a bit of up pull by hand. I went ahead and installed the ford factory tailgate damper while I had help and that didn't change it either so its not the bracket itself. Even if that would have worked the gaps would change. So its obviously that passengers side bed panel is 1/4" too high. It even measure off the bumper as that. Something like 1/4 or so. Its visually obvious when you actually look for it. .

First picture is the good side. Second one the bad side. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Drivers side

Passengers side

 

It's really unbelievable to have that lousy QC nowadays. But after seeing M3zumm's picture, I might have the reason for the misalignment. And I say that because it's just not possible that the bed holes are going to be that off when it's made in a mold; ALL of them would be off if that was the case. And where the bolts attach to the frame is not the frame itself, but a 'bracket'. And that's where I think the problem is. I can't see if that 'bracket' is welded or bolted to the frame. Hopefully the latter. And if that's the case, I'd just loosen those bolts, align the bed, and then retighten. If that's possible, then no need to mess with the bed. If the bracket is welded, then there's no other way to fix the gap than removing bed bolts and locator pins, like M3zumm did.

Oh, and that'd also explain why the bed looks raked as well. With the 'brackets' rotated a little, the bed would be both misaligned, and raised at the same time. I'm curious if those bed brackets are welded or bolted. Hopefully somebody will confirm that, to see if there's another (and simpler) way to fix the issue. Hope this helps.

 

My dealer people seem to be convinced its all welded. So it cannot be moved. They believe the fix in my case is a whole new bed. Then painted, sticker and after market spray in done. They have sent in a claim to Ford so we await the great Poobahs decision on how to proceed. All seems a bit much to me.

We even walked the lot looking for a bed we could take off and use but find one exactly the same.

An update added on edit....

Well... they were all wrong and so was I, there is a little bit of wiggle room to adjust this alignment out. It exists in the slop for those two captive bolts in a bracket that sits behind the tail light. I need to know what that is called but it has a good bit of slop in it. And so by lifting it to the right place you can get almost, if not all, of that alighnment you need without much visible difference in the gaps. This will occur on you if you ever install one of those assets brackets or may exist in your new truck if they didn't lift it properly and position it properly. Enough slop was there to get almost all of my difference out of it. Probably all but its hard to hit that sweet spot exactly. So I am relived and now need to go back to the dealer and call off all this madness. I hope he is relieved as I am. There is indeed some up down alignment even if it was not intended to be so. Its somewhat accidental that it exists I think but it works.

Now... does anyone know what that bracket is called? It floats in there in a slot with two ears bent over to retain it in the side of the rear bed panel so accept the bolts that attache the pivot bracket.

 

It sounds like you are describing the tailgate mounting bracket. Your issue is a bit different than the rest of us on this thread, as we are all dealing with the alignment of the bed itself in relation to the cab.

I am glad they were able to fix it for you.