The Resurrection: The story of a Mercury tailgate.

Transfer punched the corners of the holes to be cut out. Drilled the corners out with a 3/16 drill bit to try to keep corners from cracking.

Screwed up a couple of brand new bi metal jig saw blades until I clamped it to the workbench. I had to weld up a couple holes that were used previously to line up the blanks with the jig.

Scribed the outer lines between the 3/16 corner holes, then trimmed them down with a coarse bastard file. That little square file really cuts fast.

IMG_4908.jpeg
IMG_4909.jpeg
IMG_4922.jpeg
IMG_4923.jpeg
IMG_4924.jpeg
 
Only one pic of the hammering in by hand of the offset just below the top of the tailgate. That took a while. I used a dull chisel to run that across, several passes and I had to hit it fairly hard. The bottom piece is 1/8 thick, and I didn't want that much of an offset, just one metal thickness, so I had to unclamp it several times to check the progress and fine tune it as necessary.

You can see several little cuts in the outer face where it was very hard to get the metal right down into where it needed to be. Sometimes you just have to make a few cuts. It will be welded when clamped in final position.

The end caps are now pretty much shaped and fitted, and ready to weld in place.

I need to grind the mig spots down first, and run a pass over that weld with the tig, then grind that down, weld the captive nuts in place inside them, spray some weld thru primer on the inside, and weld them in place.

I need to get some pipe to put inside the top edge of the tailgate for extra strength, and to keep it from caving in with small dents on the edge, etc.
I'll retrieve some pipe tomorrow, and trudge on.

IMG_4929.jpeg
IMG_4941.jpeg
IMG_4945.jpeg
IMG_4946.jpeg
IMG_4947.jpeg
 
It's now pretty much done. I have some solid spot welds on it, and it measures out nicely.

I'll get Dave to come over and we will fit it to my truck to see how it looks. That's why it's not totally welded yet. Just might have to break a few spot welds to adjust it.

That one really ugly spot weld on the backside is because I was set a bit too hot, and melted through onto my Formica work table top. I consider the table top to be somewhat sacrificial. It's much nicer to hammer sheet metal onto than a steel table top with no give to it. That's my story anyway.

The one pic you can get a glimpse of the 7/8 o.d. pipe that I put into the top of the tailgate.
IMG_4948.jpeg
IMG_4949.jpeg
IMG_4950.jpeg
IMG_4951.jpeg
IMG_4952.jpeg
That is spot welded in place on the inside.

These tailgates are notoriously flimsy if a large person steps on the middle of it with some force. The pipe inside it should help the structure of the unit to stay in place, as that is how they collapse. My grey truck is almost at that point. When I haul firewood I put a thick chunk of plywood on it to keep the middle from collapsing when unloading and walking across it onto my deck.

I'm hoping I can hole saw each side on the tailgate on my grey truck and slide a pipe through to the other side to repair it. If I get to that, I'll do a post on it.

I'll have to source some 16 gauge cold rolled stock to finish off the hinge area. I have a sheet metal shop bending a new "take" on it to make it easier for me to fold it over around the hinge pipe on the bottom. It will take a couple weeks for the cold rolled material to arrive.
 
Last edited:
John….you have so much patience ! Thanks for your efforts and photos
 
I'll wrap this tailgate deal up I guess. I hung it off the back of the truck for a preliminary fitting as best as I could with the hinged area not folded over yet.

Everything looked good so I went ahead and finished off the hinge area. The pipe is common black pipe. I did bore each end for a couple inches so as to allow for an oilite bushing to be installed. The hinges will fit nice and tight that way, and should keep everything aligned as well.




IMG_5110.jpeg
IMG_5111.jpeg
IMG_5112.jpeg
IMG_5114.jpeg
IMG_5115.jpeg



I had a sheet metal shop bend up the bottom hinge area like an ohm symbol. I had to trim it to fit and it is now spot welded in place with the mig.

I clamped that piece of angle iron to the back side so as to help with any warpage, as I am about to run a tig pass across the seam. The weld bead will be 1/2 an inch from the vertical bend and I didn't want that to shrink. (it didn't)
 
As usual, I am in total awe of your talent. 👏
Thanks for showing us your process.
 
IMG_5116.jpeg




Here you can see the pass I made with the tig. I was quite happy with the heat affected zone, as it stayed very even all the way across, except for where I stopped and started to reposition myself.

With the angle iron clamped across the back while I welded it, there was zero warpage, even though you can clearly see the heat affected zone went right into the corner where it could have shrunk a nice convex shape into the bottom of the tailgate.

IMG_5117.jpeg




I finally found a use for these long reach clamps that I bought (cheap too) at Harbour Freight many years ago. You can't screw them down very tight, but they worked just fine for clamping down each plug weld.

For those that do not know, if you are trying to do a plug weld, and there is even a tiny bit of space between the two sheets of metal you're gonna burn a hole right sideways out of the plug weld hole.

I always clamp and pein the area around the plug weld and they turn out just as nice as mom's apple pie.

IMG_5120.jpeg


This is how the sheet metal gets pulled around the pipe on the bottom. Before I got to this stage, I had drilled 5 holes across the bottom in order to plug weld the pipe in place.

That insures the proper distance from the main vertical body of the tailgate out to the edge of the pipe. It is 1 7/8 inches on the factory tailgates I have measured, so that's what I made it.

Once the pipe is plug welded in place, the sheet metal is clamped with those vise grips. I clamped them about as hard as my old hands will pull them closed. You know, hard enough to sprain your finger when you pop them open, right?

After clamping, the big wooden mallet, or any seriously big hammer of your choice, hits the brick chisel, which is placed right up snug inside the bend, just below the plug weld holes.

Give it a good smack or two. Pretty damn hard. Then move over a few inches, and continue all the way across to the other side.

At this point, the vice grips will now pop open without spraining your fingers, and there is no longer any pressure on them.

Tighten up each pair of vise grips again, and continue with another round of mallet and brick chisel. Until you have the sheet metal pretty much wrapped around the pipe, and the plug welds are looking like there's no way they are going to go right into where you want them to be.

What I forgot to take a picture of is the last clamping of vise grips, cause at this point they don't line up with a damn cause they are pulling more vertical than down.

I clamped a 5 foot long piece of 1 1/2 box tubing to the underside of the tailgate, right up against the bend at the bottom.

At that point, I was able to grab some pieces of scrap metal 1/4 inch thick by 2 inches wide, a couple inches long, that bridged from the clamped box tubing across to the back side of the pipe hinged area.

That way, I was able to turn the vise grips about 90 degrees so they would pull "down" into place. The very first one of these I made was for Nic's tailgate, and I made it 4 1/2 inches bend to bend, and it is very very tight to clamp and hammer down into place.

Next one I do, I'll tight that measurement up by about 1/16th of an inch to make it a little easier.

Anyways, there was some fairly judicious hammering with the brick chisel to get the flange with the plug welds down into position.

Started plug welding wherever it looked right, then fine tuned it as I went. The more plug welds I did, the easier it was to hammer the rest into place.

It turned out pretty good in the end.
IMG_5124.jpeg

70525269939__F377236B-E374-4D3D-A5E6-832FDE7A3574.jpeg


I guess in this last pic, if you look closely at the underside of the vise grips, you can see the small metal plates I put in there to bridge from the box tubing to the pipe hinge.

The angle of the vise grips is now pulling that flange down nicely.

That's about all there is to this. All those parts in the background have now gone to a shop where I'm helping out with a couple projects. They now have filler on them and primer, soon to be colourful.
 
John: It's been about three weeks since the last update, so, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one wondering what's new since May 10th ??

James
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom