can someone shoot me a couple pics of thier 521 tailgate hinges?

[poltroon]

Please? The two bottom ones, that support the gate. Feel free to put them in my thread, if you can (see my sig)

 

Mine are eff'd up, i want to see what working ones are supposed to look like; perhaps i can fix them... perhaps not.

 

Also, anyone have an idea on how i may replace these? Welded on, so obviously non-trivial.. ideas would help.

 

thanks,

-poltroon

[xxmass]

 

 

[kelowg]

show us pic of your's to compare to

[poltroon]

perfect, thanks!!

too late to get pics tonight, but ill grab a few in the am. From those pics I can tell a couple things, first my tailgate is scrap metal... second, it appears the two parts on the tailgate are pushed "IN" toward the truck, and away from the outer wall of the tailgate... this is forcing the gap to be larger then normal. Additionally, the bed side is pushed 'in' a little, the combination is causing the tailgate to be pushed 'up'... ill mess around with it some more tomorrow. VERY much appreciate the pics however, thank you very much.

 

-poltroon.

[DanielC]

After working on the body of a few 521 trucks, I think they were assembled by hand, that is not by robots.

For example if two or more pieces of stamped sheet metal were spot welded together, the spot welds will not be in the same place on the same part off different trucks.

I think the tailgate was assembled, with the complete hinge on the tailgate. When the tailgate, with hinges was attached to the bed on the assembly line, the tailgate was held in the proper position, and the hinge was then welded to the bed, again by a human, with a weld gun.

 

You can adjust the fit of a tailgate a little bit by bending the hinges.

[xxmass]

here a few more shots of the alignment.

that is a full 3/8" at the bottom.

 

[thisismatt]

The protrusion/missalignment at the bottom seems to be from the factory.