[Keith Seymore]

Regarding the "off center axle": I would suspect the axle is centered in the chassis but the front end sheet metal is not square.

If the body gets set on the chassis crooked during assembly then the hood goes shooting off in that direction. The front fenders get pushed out of square to maintain the hood to fender gap.

That manifests itself as a difference in the relationship between the front tire and the fender lip or, because the bumper is attached directly to the frame, a differing gap between the inside edge of the bumper and the fender surface from LH to RH.

I'm not seeing that in the photos but it is worth checking and is the more common failure mode, especially with regular cab pickups as a result of the shorter cab length.

K