Decklid adjustment/alignment

[AllenGJr43]

What's up guys. Does anybody know how to adjust the decklid on the trunk? Mines pretty crooked and I can't find anything anything on it except bring it out to a dealership. Both my dealerships want me to drop the car off and get it sent to a body shop. I would really rather not do that. This car is my DD so can't deal with them dragging their feet for something that's probably super simple.

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[jasonstang]

I need to do mine. I would imagine loosening the bolts on the trunk hinge to adjust.

 

[AllenGJr43]

I just called CJ Pony Parts to see if they knew anything. They think the decklid itself is a defect and is bent. I was thinking it was the taillights that needed to be adjusted. They said there really is no taillight adjustment. Contemplating bringing the car to the dealer, or just waiting and buying the CF decklid and swapping myself.

 

[jasonstang]

I just called CJ Pony Parts to see if they knew anything. They think the decklid itself is a defect and is bent. I was thinking it was the taillights that needed to be adjusted. They said there really is no taillight adjustment. Contemplating bringing the car to the dealer, or just waiting and buying the CF decklid and swapping myself.

How crooked is it?
Can't hurt to try making it look a bit better.

 

[racingandfishing]

The lower rear latch was the best way to fine tune it for me. Unscrew the 4 round plastic net holders and pull the back panel forward. Then just loosen the two screws and move right, left, up or down and re-tighten until it is to your liking. Just be sure to re-tighten each time you make an adjustment before closing the trunk.

However, I am not sure though if it is as crooked as mine was originally - where the right side was further in and didn't line up with the tail light (thought the same thing about maybe the tail light needed adjusting). I did take it to the Ford body shop originally. After removing the panel to make my own adjustments, I can see that they tweaked the area where the lower rear latch attaches to the bodies inner panel. Looks like they used the holes next to the latch to pull the body panel out a little where the latch mounts. Not much, but you can see it is pulled out a little. Looks like a pretty soft area to work with though if you needed to. Either way, after I got it home it was still off a little. Since I didn't want to take it back again, I tried adjusting the latch and that made it perfect.

 

[djpheer]

ive tried adjusting mine that way but i still cant stop it from being crooked on one side. the bottom left of the decklid is almost hitting the rear bumper, whereas the bottom right of the decklid has like an inch of clearance before hitting the bumper. I have it adjusted where if you look at the top of the trunk, the top left side sits higher then the right side (to stop the decklid from smashing my trunk on the bottom left side) and yet the bottom left of the decklid still sits way lower then bottom right. (basically ive had to make the alignment along the top of the trunk off slightly on purpose to offset the smashing of the paint on the bottom)

 

[jasonstang]

ive tried adjusting mine that way but i still cant stop it from being crooked on one side. the bottom left of the decklid is almost hitting the rear bumper, whereas the bottom right of the decklid has like an inch of clearance before hitting the bumper. I have it adjusted where if you look at the top of the trunk, the top left side sits higher then the right side (to stop the decklid from smashing my trunk on the bottom left side) and yet the bottom left of the decklid still sits way lower then bottom right. (basically ive had to make the alignment along the top of the trunk off slightly on purpose to offset the smashing of the paint on the bottom)

You have to align the bottom edge. Don't worry about the top edge especially you can use a spoiler to cover it up.

 

[djpheer]

You have to align the bottom edge. Don't worry about the top edge especially you can use a spoiler to cover it up.

Yeah not so much in my case though. mine is way off. i had to find a happy medium between top and bottom. At least it isn't smashing the paint anymore.

 

[racingandfishing]

ive tried adjusting mine that way but i still cant stop it from being crooked on one side. the bottom left of the decklid is almost hitting the rear bumper, whereas the bottom right of the decklid has like an inch of clearance before hitting the bumper. I have it adjusted where if you look at the top of the trunk, the top left side sits higher then the right side (to stop the decklid from smashing my trunk on the bottom left side) and yet the bottom left of the decklid still sits way lower then bottom right. (basically ive had to make the alignment along the top of the trunk off slightly on purpose to offset the smashing of the paint on the bottom)

Sounds like mine was originally, just it was hitting on the bottom right instead of the left. The dealer corrected that, but it wasn't quite level on top and the side gaps weren't even. That was when I was able adjust the latch to correct it the rest of the way.

Wish I had read these forums prior to buying the car as I would have known what to be looking for before choosing one off the lot!

 

[djpheer]

I wonder how they corrected it without making the top off much. My theory is that the sheet metal is just crooked on mine. I mean there is only so much play.... if i raise one side to make the bottom even, the top of the trunk would be incredibly off. I had to find a happy medium where the top and bottom are both semi acceptable while not perfect.

 

[racingandfishing]

I wonder how they corrected it without making the top off much. My theory is that the sheet metal is just crooked on mine. I mean there is only so much play.... if i raise one side to make the bottom even, the top of the trunk would be incredibly off. I had to find a happy medium where the top and bottom are both semi acceptable while not perfect.

They adjusted the sheet metal around the lower latch where it attaches. I can see where they bent it a little to re-position it (and they also left a couple of scratches as evidence). There is a hole on each side of the latch and it looks like they literally just inserted a screwdriver or something similar to work the sheet metal. My guess is there is a bulletin somewhere for the Ford body shops telling them how to make these corrections.

 

[jasonstang]

They adjusted the sheet metal around the lower latch where it attaches. I can see where they bent it a little to re-position it (and they also left a couple of scratches as evidence). There is a hole on each side of the latch and it looks like they literally just inserted a screwdriver or something similar to work the sheet metal. My guess is there is a bulletin somewhere for the Ford body shops telling them how to make these corrections.

They probably drilled some holes and put it on a jig and bent it. Like how they fix car frames.

 

[racingandfishing]

They probably drilled some holes and put it on a jig and bent it. Like how they fix car frames.

Could be, but the holes themselves are evenly positioned and looked to be from the factory stamping.

 

[MSMStannyl]

I think we all know that Ford's QA process leaves a lot to be desired, and consequently, lots of gaps where there shouldn't be any! That being said, while there were several crappy panel fitments on my car, the decklid wasn't one of them...until I got rear ended last year.

It didn't appear that there was major damage (although the cost of the repair would have you wondering!) but I guess at some point the body shop had to remove the trunk lid. When I got the car back, I realized something was off. Looking at it from different angles, something was definitely not right. Gaps were wider on one side than the other, the top corners didn't match up to the quarterpanels, etc.

After pointing this out, I watched the guy "adjust" it. The adjustments were a combination of tiny adjustment to those rubber bumpstops (I don't think that does a whole lot but not sure), and then literally "bending" the hinges!! Yes, I was not too thrilled having to see that at first. He literally opened the trunk and then walked to one side of the rear and pushed on it to bend the hinges the other way. Not hard enough to break them obviously but just to align it better.

In talking to him he explained to me that there really weren't too many adjustment points for that lid. It basically bolts to the hinges and that's it.

In any case, not sure if that will work for you but figured I'd share how mine was adjusted and it definitely looks a lot better (although still not perfect).

 

[Fatty]

What's up guys. Does anybody know how to adjust the decklid on the trunk? Mines pretty crooked and I can't find anything anything on it except bring it out to a dealership. Both my dealerships want me to drop the car off and get it sent to a body shop. I would really rather not do that. This car is my DD so can't deal with them dragging their feet for something that's probably super simple.

Would like to see it, can u take a picture?

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