Bedxtender - Installed well, but a warning on drill template

Very happy with the combination of the AMP Bedxtender HD Max and my Extang 2.0, but wanted to give you all a heads up on a small but significant problem with the drilling template.

I wanted to keep the original template and instructions in my files so I downloaded the PDF from AMP's website and printed out that page. I was careful to print it out at the correct size. Often, when printing a PDF or similar file you will have the option to scale the output to the page size. Often, even if the original is the correct paper size, this will scale things down to fit inside margins, etc. Clearly with a drill template this would be bad in that the template graphics would be scaled down.

So I printed it out and measured against the dimensions supplied on the template. My print was good, but as you can see in the photo below, the template supplied by the manufacturer (in the back of my printout, held up to the light) was scaled down some percentage and the holes would have been misaligned had I used it (aligned with my template on the top left, clearly smaller and confirmed with a measurement).

My recommendation: check the top pair hole spacing (1.28" in the version of the unit I have) and make sure it's correct on your template, otherwise print an unscaled version from the install instructions PDF (available here).



Also, for what it's worth, here's a shot of how I set up the template for drilling. I used clear packing tape on the top half of the template to secure it and then used clear double sided tape to secure the bracket for testing and placement prior to drilling.



And a blurry cam shot of the finished product. Doesn't do it justice of course.

 

Clever method for a dry fit run before drilling!