C60L tailgate fabrication

[Harry Moon]

after consulting with a couple of fabrication shops i found i couldn't have the top edge rolled into a box section and it was suggested, and the route i chose was to weld on a "c" section in place of the boxed top edge.
So the first thing was off to Metalmart for an 30 inch by 82 14 gauge sheet, another choice was to go with 14 gauge as 12 was thicker than the original and 14 was lighter. I got my handy son to write up a file for the water jet cutter and off i went to the shop. I also bought the whole 4'x8' sheet as I used lots of the rest of it too. I did have the same shop bend up two pieces into 1"x3"x1" C channel.

[Harry Moon]

I had some 2.25" C channel under my bench from an old project and while I was going to use it top and bottom I only used it for the top.

For awhile my welding was pretty good.

[Harry Moon]

I hung the basic sheet on the truck and got a sense of how to make what I call the hangers. Used an Oxy/Acetaline torch to heat up a piece of 2" by 3/8ths bar stock and bent it in the vice, curve looks pretty much the same as the original. My luck with welding didn't hold up as the wire spool ran out and was feeding irregularly before it ran out and I'm a little slow at figuring out what was happening with the stuttering feed.
After fitting and welding I ground the welds and edges smooth and finished with some 80 grit sandpaper to smooth out all the edges as these surfaces see a lot of hands.

[Harry Moon]

Because of the way it is constructed, hinges had to go on next.
So the upper gate portion of the hinges are supposed to be like the lowers, I looked to see if there were any 5/8" pin heavy duty weld hinges available. Lo and behold an Ebayer in Malta had ones that fit the bill, so I clicked away and waited a couple of days vainly for them to ship, only to get a message that they were sorry and that they no longer had any in stock and wouldn't for the foreseeable future and refunded my money. Undaunted I looked again optimistic that I would find them anyways, nope! I sent a few inquiries via "contact us" boxes on some business websites and true to form no one ever actually gets those messages because the guy that knew how died years ago or whatever.
So I embarked on an effort with lots of pictures a jig and all only to give up. I would have needed a forge and i don't have one.
So buy chance I found 4 suitable gate hinge straps in the hardware shelves at lowes, they looked like they would work and i set out to install them.
When finished the only visible difference from original will be the width on the hinge pin, much narrower and the upper part is buried under more C channel. Also I was able to bolt them in place, test the clearances and then weld them up, removing the bolts one by one and welding the holes up.

[Harry Moon]

I dug out another piece of C channel I had fabricate years ao out of either 10 or 12 gauge and it was 1" by 2 inch by 1 inch, All "outside" measurements. It took a lot of cutting and grinding to get it to fit over the hinges and i forgot to take pictures but it was a lot of fitting chalking and grinding to get it to fit from side to side.
Welding wasn't great and welding got worse as the feed was stuttering badly and I assumed it was me, But I got to the upright 1"x3"x1" C channel for the uprights and I paused to find out what was wrong with me or the welder. Turns out the spool was just to tight on the post and I greased it and all seems to be well. You can see how the C channels hide the hinge.
Looking after one of the grandkids tomorrow so back at it in a couple of days!

[Bob Carriere]

Thanks for documenting your trial and tribulations.....

Running into the same problem on mine for the top edge.... I need a 3/4 x 3/4 double return so the 14 gauge skin is one piece with the top and the fabricator can't do it....... simple to do on a large 8 foot wide panbox brake but on a MODERN HYDRAULICS they would need a special one time offset bending blade.

On the hinges did you not consider using thick wall water pipe section welded to a strap bevelled to fit into the pipe.???

Will check my wire spool before I start my welding.......

[Alex van de Wetering]

Excellent work, Harry....and thanks for sharing the info here!

Alex