Building a Better Tailgate

Our International 4900 had an old tailgate.  It’s lasted us quite a few years, but all the loads of dirt, stone, field rocks, concrete, and scrap steel have done a number on the poor thing. I think this is the third truck we’ve had this dump bed on.  In the summer of 2013 we used the design Grandpa had for the original gate and made a few improvements in material and construction.

Here’s the old gate after we pulled it off the truck.  You can see the thin metal and a lot of the welds have taken a few beatings over the years.  The gate simply swings on a large pipe that bolts into channels sticking up from the bed.  Here the tabs that bolt to the truck have been cut off.  At this point we were looking to save the angle iron at the bottom, but it ended up not being on the finished product.  The chains at the bottom are used to set the amount the gate can open when we are spreading stone in a driveway.

This large piece of steel plate that was once the end of a tank will become the main portion of the new gate.  It is a lot thicker than the sheet from the old gate, and will do a much better job taking a hit from a big rock or chunk of concrete.

Now the plate has been cut to size and a new angle iron is being welded to the bottom edge.  I cleaned up all the edges with a grinder before Randy started welding the iron on.  Later I’ll show how the angle plays a part in keeping the gate closed.

More steel to build the hinge, and add some strength to the assembly.

Here I’m using our Wilton band saw (which is WAY better than our ancient Sears saw who probably would have ran away from pipe this size) to cut pipe to size for the gate hinge.  We built much stronger hinges out of larger pipe than what we had before.  There are now three pipes that swing on an inner pipe instead of the old style which had a single swinging pipe supported by three pieces.  And we added a third hinge vs just the two on the worn out tailgate.

Another improvement we made to the hinge design was to add zerks so we can grease the gate to keep it swinging freely.

The gate hangs on the truck for the first time.  It’s very heavy!  At this point we’ve welded a channel to the back of the gate for more support.  As heavy as the gate is it may not need much structural help, but we’re sure this will still help.  In this picture the gate is just held on with C-clamps.  It was pretty solid, but I couldn’t recommended standing behind it.  Here we just wanted to make sure it fit well before moving on.

Now we’re almost finished.  The three vertical channels attach to the hinge.  The chains for dumping stone have been added back and, and we put two holes near the top so we can lift the gate out with the forklift instead of hanging it from a chain like we always did in the past.  This should be a safer method of removing and installing the gate as needed.  It’s also primed and ready for paint!

Another slight change was made during the channel installation.  Looking back at the old gate the open side of the channels faces towards the gate.  Now we have the new channels installed with the open side facing rearward.  I figured this would help out because the old channels would get dirt and debris inside them and allow moisture to collect inside the channel potentially causing rust to go to work.

Dad is lining up the gate to be bolted in.  The tabs from the old gate have been welded on to the new hinge pipe.  Seems we were still using a chain for install here for some reason.  Don’t ask me why because I don’t know why!  Anyway the gate should come off without the aid of a chain via those two holes like I mentioned earlier.

The latch works just like the old gate did.  A breaker bar turns one iron over to clamp down over the angle iron we welded to the bottom of the gate.  The breaker bar secures to the truck with a hairpin at the end of the handle.

The finished product!  One more change we made over the old design was to run the body of the gate all the way up to the hinges instead of just to the top of the bed.  We had enough plate to do this, and it makes the whole thing extra heavy and strong!  Now the channels that attach to the hinge points can’t be hit by rocks.  This thing might outlast the rest of the truck!

What do you think of our new gate?  It’s very similar to the old one, but superior in many ways!