Drilling In Tailgate

[josbornjr]

I prurchased a ramp kit to load my snowblower and tracter into the truck. It suggests drilling four 1/8" holes in the tailgate and inserting pins to hold the ramps in place while unloading. I'm not sure I'm comfortable doing this. My concern is that it will rust. I do have a Line X liner and a Truxedo Lo Pro. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

By the way I have 2009 Silverado CCSB.

[RyanbabZ71]

I originally had some of those with my old truck. I did not drill. They never did move and worked ok. I ended buying some nice fold up ones from lowes and are much better and the rubber on the ends hold them in place.

[C. Charles Hahn]

I originally had some of those with my old truck. I did not drill. They never did move and worked ok. I ended buying some nice fold up ones from lowes and are much better and the rubber on the ends hold them in place.

 

Same here... I never have found the need to drill with those ramps. The second you put any load on them, they're not going anywhere.

[amtz.zero]

I wouldn't want to drill either.

[hockeypro1411]

I don't know what you're talking about specifically, but the ramps I use to load/unload equipment have straps on them with hooks on the end. I just put the hook on the hitch where the safety chains go and tighten it up.

[07SilveradoNoob]

I don't know what you're talking about specifically, but the ramps I use to load/unload equipment have straps on them with hooks on the end. I just put the hook on the hitch where the safety chains go and tighten it up.

 

x2

[RaddHazzard]

I don't know what you're talking about specifically, but the ramps I use to load/unload equipment have straps on them with hooks on the end. I just put the hook on the hitch where the safety chains go and tighten it up.

 

Yup. Loaded my motorcycle like that every time. Works perfect.

[sonjaab]

CAUTION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Remember that the tops of the GMT 900 (800s ???) have a bunch of BIG holes

already in the tops of the gates that are hidden by the whaletail or cap depending

on model. So if you drill you might be only drilling into the plastic caps and not

metal!

 

There are pics of the gates with the whaletail/caps off around here somewhere.

http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/index.php?...=tailgate+holes

[reidrhollander]

I use one of these: http://www.discountramps.com/tailgate_ramp.htm

 

It is nice because it goes in the hitch, unfolds as needed and is really mobile.

[SoCalChris]

I recently used that exact kit with some 10' 2x8s to load a large lawn tractor into my bed. I didn't drill, and had no problems with it moving. Just be careful, and use some common sense.

[sonjaab]

I bought a folding set from Sears a few years back to load my lawn tractor

and motorcycles.

http://auto.sears.com/Item.htm?catalogId=1...2554&appId=

 

These ramps came with pins that needed holes drilled into the gate edge.

But after seeing the post about the holes I also decided not to drill any for the pins.

 

Good thing us GM guys have REAL tailgates made for work and loading and such

UNLIKE them poor suckers that bought toyoyos and their tinfoil gates!

Like these:

[az'03Silverado]

If I were you, I wouldn't use wood ramps for anything. I used to work at a golf course and every day this elderly golfer would show up with his golf cart in the bed of his truck and drive it off using wood ramps. One day, I was watching him unload the cart and the ramps snapped. Messed up his tailgate, bent the front of his golf cart and scared the crap out of him.

[pm26]

So you are afraid to drill a few hole in your tailgate? On GM800 trucks, GM designed a wonderful bedliner, that required about 10 holes to be drilled in your tailgate just for that piece. This way they did not have to provide a few threaded capped holes in the tailgate for the tailgate bedliner piece to screw into without drilling, and saved a few cents per truck. Isn't being cheap great?

[sonjaab]

Its not the fear of drilling holes in the SIDES of the gmt-900 gate !

Its drilling along the TOP edges both inside and out thats the issue.

Like I posted there are BIG holes UNDER the factory gate cap.

So who knows if there is actually METAL where your drilling ??????

 

I ran into this issue when we removed the whaletail on my buds gmt-900

1500 and put a flat 2500 gate cap on because he couldn't close the

gate on his bed topper because of the height of the whaletail.

So the flat gate cap like the ones on the 2500 did the trick covered the

holes in the gate and solved the clearance issue.

 

BTW: I have a plastic box liner and the piece that covers the gate only

requres screws on the sides and bottom as it folds up over the top and

no TOP screws are used.

[brims]

So you are afraid to drill a few hole in your tailgate? On GM800 trucks, GM designed a wonderful bedliner, that required about 10 holes to be drilled in your tailgate just for that piece. This way they did not have to provide a few threaded capped holes in the tailgate for the tailgate bedliner piece to screw into without drilling, and saved a few cents per truck. Isn't being cheap great?

 

The POS bedliner that came in my 08 was screwed into my entire truck bed. Pissed me off, I sanded the rust off from the holes, when I got the bed Line-X'd they covered the holes with some tape prior to spraying.