80-86' F-250 Tailgate Internals

[mankypro]

Howdy,

Trying to figure out what all I'd need ot rebuild a tailgate for my 84'.

On page 24 of the Winter LMC Truck Catalog:

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fd/t.asp?page=24

It would seem that there is no rod that connects the tailgate latches on either side of the tailgate? Guess I'll just need to disassemble to one I have and hope that
my rod (if it exists) is in serviceable condition...

 

[Agnem]

Aside from tailgates rusting away, I've never seen many that failed to have decent guts. Those handles take a lot of abuse too. It must have been a good design. Even if the tailgate is bent by accident it still works.

 

[mankypro]

The right side latching mechanism is somehow horked. I have a replacement tailgate the black jobbers from LMC truck for 99.00 and I just need to get it on the truck. I'm doing quite a bit of hauling and can't be w/o a tailgate so I just want to make sure that I have everything I need before I do the swap...