Hey guys, Adam here with americantrucks.com. Today we're taking a closer look at and installing the
undercover swing case in-bed storage system available for the '15 to '18 F-150. This is a
really cool thing for F-150 owners to have who are looking for some additional embed storage
that will protect your cargo from the weather elements, be pretty inconspicuous, work with every
single tonneau cover on the market, and honestly, it's just really convenient. This particular one,
as you can see, is a swing case that latches to the side of your bed and secures itself
in place while you're driving. But it also has extremely easy access to swing out without even
having to hop into your bed to access it. A lot of in-bed stores nowadays is out by the rear window,
which requires you to hop in your bed, go all the way over there, and put a little bit more
effort into it. This is really, really convenient, and supports up to 75 pounds. All you have to do,
again, latching into place, pull on your handle, and it pretty much just swings out for you. One
of the cool features about it is it's lockable. This little thing up here flips up to access the
keyhole, rotate that, and pop it open. That way you have a little bit of added security, and you
can keep that key on your keyring at all times, and have full access to it when you wanna lock it.
It also has additional compartments. It is pretty deep and, again, accommodates up to 75 pounds. It
has a weatherproof seal. So when it does rain, nothing's getting into it if you don't have a
tonneau cover. When you do have it loaded up, you can throw your compartment back in there, shut it,
give it a lock if you need to, and swing it right back into place. It's a really cool option for
guys to have, maybe some really good valuables that they wanna carry around all the time, or
if you're going camping and need that additional storage, but still want access to your full bed.
This is, in my opinion, one of the more convenient options. It's about 200 bucks, and it literally
took me about 15 minutes to install. It's extremely simple to do. One out of three wrenches
on our difficulty meter. Very simple hand tools can do the trick and the hardware provided in the
kit. And that is about it. So I want to show you guys how it gets done. So let's just get to it.
Tools needed for this install will be a cordless impact or a ratchet, 13-millimeter wrench,
8-millimeter socket, T30 Torx bit, T40 Torx bit. So to kick off the uninstall here,
what I'm gonna do is take my cordless impact, a simple ratchet will do the trick as well,
and an 8-millimeter socket. We're gonna have to pop off our passenger side taillight to
gain access to the back of these open holes. That way we can throw the hardware included in the kit
through the bolt. Now what we're gonna have to do, pop those two bolts, two 8-millimeter bolts off of
that passenger-side taillight, pull it off of the vehicle, unclip the harness, and set that aside.
All right. Now that we're done with the uninstall, we'll be able to start installing our brackets for
our storage kit. Now this bracket here is gonna go right on the side of your tailgate. Those three
open holes are where you're gonna bolt this down. And what I'm gonna do is take the center one,
because it is a little bit smaller, it'll hold it into place and align it for us. From there,
we can go in from the back, throw our lock washer on, and the nut provided in the kit. So first up,
we're gonna make sure that these little knobs are facing the back end of the truck. We're gonna put
the bolt through the middle hole and get that locked into place. That way we can
just use that to align where to go in from the back, throw our lock washer on, and our nut,
tighten that one down. Now putting in the top and bottom bolts for our bracket here,
we're actually gonna use this big metal spacer for the back end. Those top and bottom bolts
are a little bit bigger of a hole, so we don't want our nut to collapse through that hole. So
this spacer is gonna make sure that it doesn't bottom out and it stays on the outside. So I'm
gonna put a bolt into the top first. Our spacer is gonna go second to kind of close
that gap a little bit. Next up would be our lock washer, followed by the nut to cap it off.
Perfect. Do the same thing for the bottom one, but it's not necessary to use a spacer
in the middle. You're only gonna be given two in the kit, one for the top, one for the bottom
All right. Now we can take our Torx bit and tighten those down. You're also gonna wanna
have a wrench or a ratchet on the inside to hold that nut in place, all right? Now we got our T40
Torx bit. We're gonna tighten it down from the front using a 13-millimeter to hold the nut on
the back. Next step here, we're gonna install our secondary bracket, which is gonna take a T30 Torx
bit bolt. So I'm gonna take the bracket and it's gonna go right into the sidewall of your bed, and
it's already got pre-threaded holes, so it's gonna go right in there. We don't have to worry about a
nut on the other side, the threading goes on the inside of that truck bed. So first, I'm gonna
take a top bolt, put it into place to get things going. Here's my cordless impact with a T30 bit.
So you've already got those two brackets installed. One on your truck bedside and
one on the tailgate. This side is going to allow the swing case to actually swing open.
And this side is just gonna latch it into place so that when you're driving, it's not moving all
around. What we're gonna do is load our hinge pins onto these receivers on the swing case,
and then we'll be able to test it out. From here, all you have to do is line up those pins,
for the top and bottom, drop it into place. And as you can see, that will allow it to swing. It
can latch it into place here and it's locked. To release it, you just pull on this yellow handle
and swing it out. There's no need to hop into the truck bed, as I mentioned before, making this an
extremely convenient storage case for your truck bed. Latch it into place, you have full access to
the bed. And once you do swing it out, you'll be able to pop it open from here, shut it, and
twist this to lock it into place. But if you pop that cap open, there actually is a physical lock
and it comes with a key, so that way, nobody else can pop this open. Makes it a pretty secure case.
Now, this isn't made of steel, so it's not like you can't just cut through it. It
isn't exactly the most protective, but if you have some things you don't want getting wet,
you don't want your bed to be exposed to, you can pop this right into your storage case,
lock it up, and it's protected from the weather elements. So that's a really good feature to
have. And when you're done, pop it back in, close your tailgate, and you're good to go.
The only thing we have left to do, reinstall our taillight, we'll be good to go. At this point,
we have our factory taillight in hand. I didn't actually pop our harnesses off, I just switched
the bulbs right out of place. So I'm just gonna twist them back into their locations. All right.
Now we can pop this back in. Now your harness actually retains right to the side of your frame.
The only other thing I wanna point out is that when it comes time to actually removing it,
if you don't want it in your truck bed, you wanna have a little bit more space since it
does take up a little bit of the width, you can just unclip it, lift it off the hinges,
and set it aside. It is just that simple. When it comes time to throwing it back in,
drop it back onto those hinges, and lock it into place. It's a really cool thing to have,
like I said. 200 bucks, very simple install. If you wanna pick up the undercover swing
case in-bed storage for your own F-150, you can do so right here at americantrucks.com.