tonight i went to Sports Authority to pick up my little brother's xmas present.. i got him a workout bench, and went to put the box in my bed with the help from one of the guys that works there.. anyway.. it was kinda cold tonight.. 30- something out.. i went to open the tailgate.. and the handle shattered in my hand (my tailgate tends to stick from time to time.. and with me pulling as hard as i did to break it free, i think it finally gave into the cold)... anyone know how hard it is to replace???? i've always wanted to just do the handle relocator thing to move the handle to the inside of the bed.. maybe now that i need to get it fixed, ill just say screw it and go ahead and do the relocator thing. its good motivation i think for my next mod! unfortunatley tho im going to have to wait a few weeks till i get some money back together after xmas.

 

The plastic handles break faily easily. There are aftermarket metal replacements. I think I have seen them on eBay. Not hard to install. You have to remove the bedliner segment from the tailgate if you have one. Then pull the access panel that's held on by Torx screws. R&R the handle. Reassemble.

 

Yea , i did christians for him, it was broke for a while, he had the handle and everything, just never replaced it..

 

You can get a metal one for about $15 on eBay.

Mine came close to breaking since it was sticking and the temperature started to drop, but removing the service panel and soaking everything in silicone lubricant seems to have fixed the problem for now at least.

 

You have to think about it. If you relocate it to the inside you also have to work on getting the outside of the tailgate shaved. I don't know how much that would run you.

 

get a mazda tailgate....they have the chrome metal handles, plus if u wanna shave emblems and have it look smooth, its very easy, all mazda emblems are stickers....u wont have holes!

 

i didnt know that about the mazdas, thats pretty cool.

as far as the handle goes, it will take some body work to do the relocator, and the only reason i havent done it to my F150 is because if i have something that takes up the whole bed, when i shut the tail gate, i may not be able to reach in to open it!!

 

thats not that bad... i was opening up my tail gate in FL and the hole tail came off and the wires snapped and it slammed to the floor... yah that sucked but it said it was their fault so they replaced it for free

 

Yeah mine broke last week too, it sucks!

Brenton

 

True, if you needed to shave anything it would have to be the emblems near the doors.

Brent: Check out this tailgate:

 

The same thing happened to me w/ my '99. Cold winter day (xmas day ~'01 I think), tailgate stuck, I gave it a good yank as usual and the damned thing came off in my hand! Sucked too as it meant I had to unbutton the tonneau to get into the bed.

My dealer had the metal one as a replacement. Not sure if it was Ford OEM or not, I thought it was. Figured it was remarkably Ford-like for them to have a plastic handle stock, but offer a metal handle as a replacement! At any rate it ran me like $25-30 IIRC. Replacing the handle is simple, as rwenzing described. Shouldn't take you more than 30 min..

 

brenton!!! whats up man!!! now there's THREE mazda's on this site!!! hells yeah!!!

 

I found the way to prevent having to pull hard is to lean INTO the tailgate while pulling the handle. Isn't easy if you're carrying something bulky or heavy though. I kind of "check" (as in hockey) tailgate with my body slightly as I pull the handle, or I just push the tailgate in with one hand while pulling the latch with the other, then let it drop. Works everytime and I don't have to pull hard.

Don't know if it'll work on everyone's truck, but I done it on several Rangers and it's gotten them all open easily. Not sure how to fix the underlying problem, but that's how I handle it.

 

we need a continuous hook up of wd-40 to spray on the springs inside the tailgate....

 

we need a continuous hook up of wd-40 to spray on the springs inside the tailgate....better that...seal up the tailgate and just fill it up with silicone spray or similar

:)

 

My tailgate sticks on my tonneau. I ripped the rubber padding off the underside of the bar that goes accross the tailgate, but it still sticks a bit, especially w/ the diamond-plate lip guard I put on. I don't mind though. After finding out how relatively affordable and easy it was to replace the handle I'm almost looking for an excuse to do it on the new truck. I'd rather have the metal handle anyhow..

 

I clean up and lube up the tailgate mechanism and adjust the latches pretty much yearly. If you take care of it, the gate will work flawlessly all the time.

 

How do you adjust it, Dave?

 

Hey, I recently replaced my tailgate handle with a color-matched one from a 98 Ranger, so I have the black plastic one just laying around.. you can have it for the price of shipping (should be about $10?)

But honestly, a new one from Ford will be only $25-30 (I got mine at cost because I'm a Ford contractor, cost was $21) and they'll have it in the next day. What you want to do is order the part for a 2000 or earlier ranger, thats the old-style metal handle. Its a direct swap-out, and if you shatter the metal handle, then you have serious problems.

 

Are you sure it's 2000 OR earlier?

My step mother has a 2000 and my grandfather has a 2000 (b3000) and they're both metal. I have a 99 and it's plastic. So wouldnt it be 99 and earlier?

 

yahh they are easy to break, so far i have only broken one though :)
next time i will get the medal one though


hey john i lean into the tailgate just like you do!!!

 

Hmm.. strange. I know for SURE that 1998 was the metal handle, and it was color matched, so if you know your paint code you can order it color matched like I did.


(crappy photo brought to you in part by Motorola V600 camera phone)

 

hmmm... i never knew that...

 

I lubed mine with a graphite spray on lube yesterday and what a difference! I sprayed the latches themselves on each end both on the tailgate and the body. Works better than when new actually. It's feather touch to open it now. We'll see how the graphite holds up. This is pretty good stuff we use at the plant but I can't remember what it was (I have the can at work). I'll post it here next week.

 

Go look through a JC Whitney catalog and they have the chrome handle assembly for 12 bucks plus like 5 for shipping. Mine did the same thing, only i'd been drinkin and tried to open it, and it looks all prettied up now.