Bed to Cab Gap Way Off - Suggestions?

[LuvNLife]

Folks,

I just bought a project truck about 2 weeks ago. It's an '84 2wd, short bed, fleetside. I do know at some point in it's life, the driver side fender, and corner/edge of the hood took a hit which had pushed it into the leading edge of the door. Only the corner of the radiator support was tweaked, and that was brought back to straight with a hammer and dolly. I don't think it was much of an impact, since everything appears to line up fairly well.

I went by a body shop today to talk about bringing the truck back to something respectable looking, and while we were going over every inch of it, we noticed the gap between the front of the bed and cab is way off. On the driver's side, the gap measures about 1/2", with the passenger side being 1 1/4".

We measured from the bottom rear edge of the rocker flange to the center line of the front wheels, and they're within 1/8" of each other. While it's hard to measure, I did eyeball down both sides from the rear of the truck, and the driver's side tire seems to set into the wheel well a bit more than the passenger side. The body guy got under the truck and didn't see anything to indicate the frame was ever tweaked. Simply put, the bed, instead of being parallel to the frame rails, seems to be slightly on the diagonal to them.

So, my question is, is there enough adjustment left/right and fore/aft in the holes where the bed bolts go to allow the bed to be moved around and make the gaps fairly even, and/or can the bolt holes be wallowed out without any negative effects?

Thanks!

Jerry

[carboncrew]

Yes, you can adjust a bed quite a bit.

[Gmc.guy]

The cab/front clip will move a bunch too Use the center of the cab and rad support mount bolt heads as a solid point to measure from. . (Loosen up to shift side to side or front to back)