[JrZook]

So nearly everyone with a softy sierra and bigger tyres hanging off the tailgate will have or will be suffering from the hinges ripping out of the body due to the extra weight. In my case I also have a jerrycan, shovel and axe as well as a 30"spare hanging off it so it started to crack. Needed to fix it before my tailgate fell off somewhere on the bruce between cairns and briz on my trip back.

Armed again with my trusty angle grinder, a lenght of 50x50x4mm gal angle and a handful of nuts n bolts I did this:

Cut the inner body skin behind the fuel tank filler neck so I could gain access to the hinge mounts. Cut a length of gal and positioned it inside the body:







I drilled out the thread of the original hinge captive nuts and placed another piece of gal on the outerside of the body. These were sandwiched together with both the original hinge bolts and inner nuts as well as alongside of the angle.





I also modified the outer gal angle in the press to get a closer fit to the body.



Feels a heap stronger now!! If it cracks now it will most likely take half the body with it

Dan

[31zook]

really clever dan

[86slowsierra]

nice work.
what about the tale gate side? and the where the the spare wheel mount mounts to the tale gate?
but seriously nice work.

[crewsy]

wonder if the hinges will still sag with the extra weight on it?
good idea though, still would be way stronger than before!

[JrZook]

86slowsierra wrote:

nice work.
what about the tale gate side? and the where the the spare wheel mount mounts to the tale gate?
but seriously nice work.

Haven't gotten to the tailgate side yet as this was a super rushed job. To do teh tailgate I will get a 100mm wide 4mm gal strip to put behind teh hinges which should stiffen it up quite a bit.

Dan

[bohuler]

crewsy wrote:

wonder if the hinges will still sag with the extra weight on it?
good idea though, still would be way stronger than before!

If you take the hinges off and grind the weld holding the pin in and drill out the pin hole to 8mm and put some shaft steel in and weld it to the bottom of the hinge its fixes it good and strong. A mate of mine did this to fix his sloppy hinges for a road worthy. Better then getting new hinges which will just sag
Dave