Leaning striker posts

[akforsyth]

I am hoping that someone can shed some light n my latest problem I found with my Bronco build. Reading about door alignment the other night here I read that the width between the bed rails was 56" and it kinda struck me that when I measured mine before I started that mine was not. Well low and behold I looked at the pics of the measurements I took and mine was in fact 57 1/2" between the bed sides. So yesterday I spent some time trying to pull these back to the right width. I cut the braces out across the bed and pulled them back into the right width, but when I did that my striker posts began leaning in a ridiculous amount! So I figured I would take pause and regroup my thoughts and get some advice before I waste a bunch of time. It was suggested earlier this morning on another group that it may be that the wheel wells are drooping, which caused the bed sides to be out of alignment. The bed itself is perfectly flat (with a level on it), but am wondering if I raise up the wheel wells could this bring it back into alignment better? I have a brand new 1 piece floor pan set ready to install and it is 57 3/16 wide so as i understand it the bed sides are a little inside of this.

Thanks for anything anyone can add.

 

[akforsyth]

Sorry for the sideways pics, I damn well forget to turn my phone when taking pictures!

 

[akforsyth]

Well hope this help someone later on. The previous years had not been kind to this bronco and it had been patched together roughly it's whole life. Couple that with missing panels and, broken floor braces and unleaded panels made this entire bronco not straight in any way. I was able to jack up the front corner near the drivers striker post another 1/2" and it brought the striker post to almost vertical. Now to work on the other side.

 

[markatherton]

striker

Push and pull. It's only metal...My body guy always says, "Just get a bigger hammer". Mark in San Diego, Beach City Broncos.

 

[needsmoarturbo]

It can take quite a bit of patience to get these old things straightened out but if one is methodical and not afraid to measure and try a few things a solution can usually be found.
Sounds like you are getting there.
Keep it up

 

[Scotty]

I don’t know if this helps or not, but the striker posts are not square to the floor.

The post is less than 90° from the floor measured from the inside (approximately 87-88° according to my simple angle gauges). I put a framing square on it last summer and found that with one edge of the square lying on the floor and the vertical leg of the square touching the inner edge of the door pillar support at 16” above the floor (1st photo), there was a 9/16” gap between the corner of the square and the where the striker post meets the floor (2nd photo). I confirmed my non-square finding with the former owner of Bronco Hut.

Measuring between the top of the flange on the striker posts around which the weather-stripping wraps, I get 56”. Between the the bottom of those flange at the floor is 57”.

I have 56” between the bedrails behind the driver’s and passenger's shoulders and 56 1/8” at the bedrail forward the liftgate. I have damage from a left-rear corner impact that may have pushed the top of the rail slightly outward. The tailgate which is square appears to not fit squarely between the tailgate posts; it's a slight variance.

Caveat: these are my numbers only and we know that these old broncos weren’t exactly “precise” leaving the factory.