tailgate latch help ? any ideals ??

[fun4now]

my latest project is a tailgate for my 88 chev. picup. ya know the kind that lets air flow through. i use it all winter to keep the car out of the road salt. as i make lots of trips to rochester i usualy put the gate down to save gass on the highway but if i get stuf in the city i need it up on the way back. so i decided to make a gate.
the gate came out great but i need an ideal as to how to latch it closed?

im going to the tractor suply place to see what i can find . i was just wondering if any one had done this befor and had some ideals. i dont need it locked with a lock just want it to stay closed.
my old 1951 had a cool lock but cant remember how it worked any one got a pic. of an old truck latch maybe? ( got rearended in my 51 so its a flat bed now bummer )


atached are some pic's of what i got sofar

[walker]

You could modify some seatbelt latches, weld the male end on the gate, the female end on the box. You could also use a slide bolt, look in the gate hardware section at the hardware store.

[Teeps]

alot of manufacturing crates use a 3/8 to 1/2" sliding dowel. Basically a metal peg on each side, the peg slides into a hole in the fixed portion of the crate, (in your case the old latch holes) on each side. It's spring loaded, with a small cable connecting to the dowel fixture on each side.
The cable is routed as such, that it can be pulled from the middle to bring both of the dowels in against spring tension.
You'd have to pick a dowel size, then weld a plate with the right size hole machine, ramping the hole would make it easy to close the gate and lock automatically.

Although electric solenoids would be pretty trick for opening :-)

A safety/hard lock wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[Slaghand]

Hey Jim! going to use your old gate any more? if not use the latches from it! Or--study one of them and copy one, and operate with a center pull cable.

[fun4now]

thanks all

spring pin
thought about the pin ideal but want the gate to stay clear through the center to run a cable to each side from the middle wouldnt keep the look im after.
i got some lock latches and a pin to modify and put 1 on each side. i'll see how that looks. if i dont like it i'll look into the spring pin ideal again but without a ataching cable so you would have to release each side seperatly.
i'll post some finished pic's when i get it figured out .
thanke for the ideals all.

teeps
Although electric solenoids would be pretty trick for opening :-)

as you might have noticed the truck is no show pice its a rusty oll work truck. although a realy cool ideal maybe a bit too much for this truck LOL

[Teeps]

Yeah I here ya, I tend to go a bit overboard with projects like this, lol.

One idea, probably the easiest. Use the spring loaded sliding bolt (or your latches), and you could have a stop-pin perpendicular to the bolt/latch.

In otherwords, once you have retrieved the bolt, either you could turn it to lock it in the released position, or slide a smaller perpendicular pin/latch to hold it in the released position. Then you could go to the other side and release that bolt as well. You'd really only need this feature on one side.

Heck you could make the smaller lock-out pin spring loaded as well.

[Paul Seaman]

Fun:
How about a detent pin, one per side and just slip them through a hole in the gate into a hole in the body or a plate mounted to it. They sell the pins I am referring to at Lowes for about $3.00 each.

I am low tech, except for my equipment, its hightech !!!!!!

Peace,

[DEA]

Did you cut the POW-MIA out yourself?
Look's good

[Blown S-10]

if your doing that to save gas, your going in the wrong direction. driving with the tailgate down or removed has been proven to decrease gas milage. with the gate closed, it creats a bubble of rolling air in the bed that acts like a flat bed cover of sorts. this creats less drag.
the gate off/down creats a LARGE flat rear area, that acts as a parachute of sorts.

[Blown S-10]

oh-yeah. if you want to save gas, get a tonneau cover. but realisticaly you will never notice the increase.

[fun4now]

feel the diferance

all i know is i can feel the diferance when i put the gate down.
well save gas or not it looks real cool. the old gate was all rusted up anyway
yes i cut the pow with my spec125c it is cut out of 14gage steel.

i went with a standerd pad lock hasp see pic's


still needs rubber spray on bed liner and paint, i'll post a pic when its done

[wendell]

Thats about the best add for a Spectrum that Miller could ever ask for. Any chance we could get a close up? Awesome work!

[fun4now]

wendell

i have been verry happy with my spectrum 125c, i got it befor i had a working air compresser or i would have gotten the 375 but have been real happily suprized by what the lil 125 can do. it has come in handy and sometimes indispencible as i start working tward a home buisness to get me off disability. there is no dought that being broken suck's big time but relying on someone else to suport you and your family is even werse

i havent finished the tail gate yet i just got finished adding the 2nd coat of truck bed liner (similer to ryno liner) and will start the paint process tomarow. i'll post a pic of it when i am finished. here are a few pic's of it as well as some of the other things i'm trying to sell for the vetrins outreach program.

the real bummer in all this is i realy like the trailor recever plug's i made but cant get the hitch recever out of my truck to put one on it LOL so i only have 1 on my car

[Blown S-10]

thats some REAL nice work James !!! did you try looking on ebay to see if anyone sells anything like that ? go there and see how well POW/MIA stuff is selling. or other metal ornimental(sp?) stuff. you possibly could make things and sell them on ebay. considering your time/effort/material, what do you think it would be worth to you to sell on of those for ?

btw. if you could some time. find a piece of scrap, then just cut a straight line down the center, 3-4" would be fine. just would like to see how fine a cut it makes. thanx, no hurry.

[fun4now]

Blown S-10

i'll make a cut for you tomarow

as far as selling on e-bay i will be listing some of the things i have made some time this week ( i hope ). still trying to figure what to charge for the gate and also what years the gate will fit. i made it to fit my 1988 chev. it uses all the existing setup on the truck except the lock so i can put my old rusty gate back on if i ever fix the rusted out parts. just need to take out the 2 screw's that hold the old latch and put in the new lock put the screw's back in. no new holes in truck all the existing mounts work. it's a true bolt on no modifying needed.