repurposing a damaged tailgate into a v gate

[NEnative]

I gave my three month old, brand new f350 dually the dreaded "bump" into the fifth wheel pin box while backing into a parking spot in front of the trailer. The trailer is fine (truly blessed for that). Now I would like to cut the damaged tailgate and make it into a v gate. I did a google search and could only find one picture of a ford where the owner did the same thing. Have any of you ever fabricated a v gate from a factory tailgate? Any hints you can provide would help before I start cutting.

[GoPackGo]

I would not like the fact that you couldn't lock the tailgate anymore. Also that a lockable tonneau or hard cover would not stop a thief. Also I'd want to insure the back-up camera stays. For all these reasons, I'd visit a junkyard.

My .02

[Denny___Jami]

I cut down two of them for two different trucks years back. I just cut it down to the depth I wanted and welded in a 1/8 piece of flat stock. I used two slide bolts Slide bolt to latch the gate.

I destroyed mine when the truck had under 2K miles on it but I was pulling out from under the pin, I went back to a louvered gate that I had from my last truck and moved the backup camera to it. Mine was to badly damaged to cut it down, I do have a new gate sitting in the garage that will go on when I sell the truck, I promised my insurance agent it would stay there until that time :W, new painted to match gates are very expensive.

Denny

[edatlanta]

Or do like my brother in law did. He went to a salvage yard and bought another tailgate. Works great except the replacement is white and his truck is red. He doesn't care, but then you have to know my brother in law.

I would at least paint the replacement to match.

[MudChucker]

I saw one where the guy that did it fabbed up a twisty thing on the inside that pulled 2 cables an unhooked the latches.

[belairbrian]

looking at the picture above it looks like they left the latch rods in place and let them stick through the sides of the V then added rings to pull

[Nevadastars]

I found a pic of one, but no story on it. Hard to tell exactly how he did it, except for the diamond plate on the lower part. I did body work for over 40 years, so it would be pretty easy for me to do it nice. Figuring out how to release the latches at the same time would be the hard part. Here is the pic....

[fj12ryder]

Somebody on this forum did that and posted some pics, but I have no idea who or when. I do remember that he did a good job.

[corvettekent]

Cut less than you plan to so you can look inside. You will need to lower the latch handle and when you are done you will need to repaint the tailgate.

Take photos and post them so we can all see how it worked out.