Questions about truck bed; gap between bed and cab.

Hello all! I am new to the forum! I had a few questions regarding the truck bed and the gap between the cab.

I notice that my truck bed inst necessarily straight. It appears that it is pretty much well aligned from front to rear in a sense that both rear tires are even as far as how much they stick out from the fender. My problem though is that on the drivers side, top and bottom of bed against the cab, measures about 3/4 of an inch. The passenger side however, measures about 1 inch on the top of the bed agaisnt the cab, and the bottom of the bed agaisnt the cab measures about 3/4 of inch. Basically, on the passenger side, when I look at the gap between the bed and the cab, there is more space in between the top than there is on the bottom. Has anyone else seen this on their 1st gen Tacomas
? Hope this makes sense. Thanks.

 

check for a bent rear frame. common problem

 

If your bed looks straight, Adam's right. But be sure to make sure it's not the bed itself that's tweaked.

 

Thanks for reply. The rear bumper has a small dent on the passenger side but it appears to be a small fender bender. Could this have caused the frame to bend? How do i go about checking for a bent frame? The small dent looks like the previous owner backed into a pole or something. Thanks

 

Sorry but I am a real newbie with tacomas and trucks in general. What is a tweaked bed? Anyway to fix this by adjusting the bed bolts? Is this a common problem? -and what causes tweaking. thanks

 

bed is easy to adjust if bed alignment is what the problem turns out to be. Three bolts on each side easily accessible from underneath.

 

A "Tweaked bed" refers to the bed being bent/misaligned as opposed to the frame being bent. 'tweaked' means bent, or generally not as it should be.

 

since the rear portion of the frame that is comon that bends is all C channel..you'll be able to see it. Usually happens right around the area the frame goes from boxed to C channel.

 

Thanks again for the replies! Im new to Tacomas so sorry for the rookie questions. Ill check the frame to see if I find anything that looks unusual. If this is the case, is this fixable by replacing a part or will it be something I have to live with My soul is getting eaten by this! How common is this problem and what causes the rear frame to bend? Can i add spacers or something on a bolt or 2 to lift up just that rear passenger side corner? Thanks!

 

i wouldn't lift the passenger side. Our trucks also get "Taco lean" which is sagging on the driver side due to the gas tank, battery and driver all being on the same side. so when your driving it, its probably pretty dang level.

frame can get bent from too much weight in the back and hitting a bump real hard. some times it takes a lot, some times not much at all.

 

most common location for the frame to bend is right about where the upper shock mount is on the frame for the rear passenger side shock. That's where the frame goes to C channel. Sometimes you can see the top or bottom of the frame starting to buckle in that location.