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yellowoctupus
Well-Known Member
Hawaii is notorious for having cars rust out prematurely (has something to do with being surrounded by salt water...who knew?). Anyways, my new (to me) $400 '02 Ranger needed a lot of help in the bed department, so I added some pictures here to help anyone out who has similar problems. Came out really well for just using scrap metal laying around my shop, and that said, it also just cost me some time, no $$.
The bed was basically being held together with a ratchet strap, which was funny because about 20yrs ago, that was the remedy I had for a screwed up bed on my '88 S10. Funny, but not really the 'right' solution. I made a cradle out of a 3" angle iron I had (it was already the right length, too!), some 2" tubing and some old bed frame parts. I think the dimension to the inside of the two tubes was 52.5", which gave me a little bit of room to shim the bed sides around as needed. I think I only had to shim one bolt location out 1/8", so it all came together as planned for once.
Per the tailgate alignment, one side clicked into place nicely, but the other side required slamming. Initially I thought it was the position of the catch plate on the bed, so i slotted those holes more to get it closer to the tailgate, but in the end I found the problem was really where the tailgate meets the catch plate's rubber bumper piece. I guess the rubber isn't as pliable as it once was, so you really had to slam it into place to compress the rubber (it acts as an over-slam protector and also takes the play out so it doesn't rattle). Instead of replacing the rubber (if you can) I just ground down the tailgate-side stop until it closed with a reasonable force. I found a good way to get the two sides balanced was to close the tailgate very lightly, then just push the tailgate corners on their own to get them to catch independently (less subjective than slamming it until it felt right). Then of course, just loosen the bed side catch torx screws and adjust to get the tailgate so it's flush with the bed and it's all done.
The bed was basically being held together with a ratchet strap, which was funny because about 20yrs ago, that was the remedy I had for a screwed up bed on my '88 S10. Funny, but not really the 'right' solution. I made a cradle out of a 3" angle iron I had (it was already the right length, too!), some 2" tubing and some old bed frame parts. I think the dimension to the inside of the two tubes was 52.5", which gave me a little bit of room to shim the bed sides around as needed. I think I only had to shim one bolt location out 1/8", so it all came together as planned for once.
Per the tailgate alignment, one side clicked into place nicely, but the other side required slamming. Initially I thought it was the position of the catch plate on the bed, so i slotted those holes more to get it closer to the tailgate, but in the end I found the problem was really where the tailgate meets the catch plate's rubber bumper piece. I guess the rubber isn't as pliable as it once was, so you really had to slam it into place to compress the rubber (it acts as an over-slam protector and also takes the play out so it doesn't rattle). Instead of replacing the rubber (if you can) I just ground down the tailgate-side stop until it closed with a reasonable force. I found a good way to get the two sides balanced was to close the tailgate very lightly, then just push the tailgate corners on their own to get them to catch independently (less subjective than slamming it until it felt right). Then of course, just loosen the bed side catch torx screws and adjust to get the tailgate so it's flush with the bed and it's all done.
