Well made the rear rail. The flat meatal strip that's on top of the rail is just tack welded to the rear rail to hold the top of it flush with the sides while I get the hinges on.


Since I shortened the height of the rails I decided to simplify the latching pins. They originally were going to be spring loaded in both top and bottom corners of the tailgate. But instead I hinged it and used 3/8” pins to hold it up.

Making the sleeves for the pins. I started by tack welding a piece of sheet metal to a rod that was a little larger then the 3/8” pin.


I then stuck it in the vice and bent the sheet metal over then turned it 90* and bent it down again and so on till it started to overlap itself. I then cut it and welded it together and grinded the weld down.


The finished sleeve.



For drilling the holes straight through both the side rail and tailgate I used a piece of scrap square tubing and used the drill press to drill a hole the size of the pilot hole I was going to use. I then make where I wanted the hole and lined the hole on the scrap tubing to the mark and clamp it in place. Then drilled away. After the pilot holes was drilled all the way through I was able to drill the size hole I needed for the sleeves and know that they would be straight and level.





I then stuck the sleeves in all the way through and cut off any extra and welded the two ends. Then I used a sawall to cut the sleeves between the side rail and tailgate and grinded the extra off and welded those ends and grinded all the welds down.

Here it is finished, just need to wet sand the primer down and throw a couple coat of paint on it.