1997 Ford F-150 Rail Cap

thingiverse

I drive an old pickup. It's now 23 years old, a true veteran. I take care of all maintenance and repairs myself, which is something I'm very proud to do. However, over the last two decades, I've lost three out of four rail hole covers that are at the corners of my truck bed. I remove them when I need to use ratchet straps to secure something in place, but then forget to put them back on again. It's likely that I left them in the bed of my pickup and they're now lying by a Texas highway. Sorry, Texas, it wasn't intentional. Then I remembered that I have a 3D printer at home, which can help me solve this problem. After doing some research, I found a design on Thingiverse from PurdueTech2010: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:155554. It's a great design, better than anything I could come up with myself. But it was created for model years 2000-2007, and mine is a 1997 with some differences. Luckily, the hole size is identical, so all I had to do was resize the tongues that hold it in place. Now it fits my truck perfectly. I'm pretty sure this design would also fit year 1998 models, but I'm not entirely sure about 1999 models. Ford made some changes to their design between 1997 and 1998.