Bent tailgate/hinge… cause unknown

Hey all, I just realized that either my bed has warped or my tailgate is bent.
(Edit: Seems like it’s the tailgate, or maybe even the frame, not the bed)

The cable holding the driver side of the tailgate is loose, and all the weight of the tailgate is being held up by the passenger side bolt.





You can see that if I take out the passenger side cable, it’s around half an inch too short. Measured the cables already and they’re the same length.




UPDATE:
It seems it’s the tailgate and not the bed.

I noticed that when closing the tailgate, the driver side latch makes contact just a hair before the passenger side. When the driver side makes contact, there’s around a 4mm gap on the passenger side.

I measured the distance between the top of the bed and the tailgate on either side when closed and they’re within ~1mm difference, so it looks like the bed is fine.

Maybe the culprit is the carpet that was added to the bed? Which got wedged between the tailgate/bed when closing and messed something up (see next photo). Still need to figure out how to fix it…




UPDATE 2:
So it’s looking like it may be related to the rear bumper? Still not sure. I have a pic pre-bumper and it looked fine, but that was quite awhile ago.



If anyone has any ideas or recommendations I’d appreciate it!

 

My driver side has had some sag since day one.

 

bed stiffeners will NOT prevent Every rear scenario

too much weight on tailgate itself

excessive uneven load on bed closer to opening

loading a full sized moto with ramp

etc

 

Is one of the 4 bolts that holds those cables bent?

 

Your tailgate is warped or it's hinges are screwed up some way.

 

Measure the distance from the bottom left corner of the bed to the bottom right corner of the bed. Then do the same for the middle and the top (whilst the tail gate is down). It'd be good to have measurements to know how far out you are. You can also measure the angles at the bottom left and bottom right of the bed. They should be 90 deg. A cheap way to see if they are sitting at 90 deg is to suspend a plumb line inline with each side then take pictures. Plenty of digital measuring apps out there to measure angles from a pic.

 

i would take off the drivers side cable and apply pressure on the tailgate until it lines up right. or have a body shop do it...

 

I blame your bumper.

 

why do you think your bed is bent?

 

I think I just jumped to that because I have so much weight in the rear and I see so much about it online. Seems much more likely that it’s the tailgate hinge though now

 

Did some more digging, I think it’s safe to blame the tailgate itself or maybe the hinge at this point.

The culprit is most likely the carpet that was added to the bed, which then got wedged between the tailgate/bed when closing and messed something up.

Still need to figure out how to fix it… maybe I’ll just mess up the other side since it still closes fine lol.

 

That makes total sense.

 

You can change the thread title under “Thread Tools”.

 

Thanks

 

I would check the hinge itself. There is a liner piece in the hinge to keep it from being metal to metal. Does the "soft open" still work? My old gen 2 was so bad one of the catches had to be removed because the hinges were worn out. Just a thought.

 

I had a Bed Rug installed for a couple of years. Mine folded in the exact same way. It has to fold into that position.
Mine got wet and frozen in that position many time, and often filled with dirt in that position, and never caused an problem.
You have a different issue.

 

I have the OEM rubber bed mat. Once I was loading a water heater in and the bed mat got pushed into the opening between the tailgate and bed. I tried to shut the tailgate and it wouldn't latch. So in my infinite dumbassery I slammed the tailgate shut pretty hard with the bed mat in between the bed and tailgate.

No damage was done. I don't think the bed rug did it either.

 

I was wondering the same- I'd think that heavy swing out bumper places a huge load on points not designed for it, but I've never installed one so maybe the MFG addresses this as part of the install.

 

It’s difficult to say without a more comprehensive set of photos. It would also be interesting to see how things look with a square.