Anyone have their tailgate collapse? I was loading a garden tractor Saturday. I had 2 aluminum ramps on the edge of the tailgate, and we were pushing the tractor up the ramps with another tractor with a loader. The other tractor was on the ground, and never touched the ramps.
Almost all the way up, I see the dead tractor lean, and the tailgate had collapsed in the middle. Pretty much demolished. This tailgate was replaced due to tree damage last year, the bodyshop supposedly used OEM parts.


Something not kosher?

 

I would check with the shop make them show you the part number.

 

Yeah, I'm going to stop by for sure.

 

Pics? Can we get some pics?

 

I just talked to the bodyshop, they used an OEM tailgate. They talked to the Ford dealer where they got the parts, dealer says they aren't made for that, that I should have taken the tailgate off, blah, blah. No warranty. What a crock!


I'll get some pictures of it later tonight.

 

A few pictures. Don't let this happen to you!

 

Did the truck bottom out to the stops before / while this happened? I'm surprised the cables didn't make the sacrifice and break first.

Thanks for sharing sir and sorry for the damage. Seeing this, I'll be sure to have a 2x8 under each ramp to keep the weight off the gate.

 

How heavy was the tractor in question?

Still surprised, this is the first bent tailgate photo I can remember seeing. And LOTS of us use ours to load and unload vehicles.

 

that had to be a heavy tractor. I know tailgates cannot handle the weight that the bed can. I remember lending my old truck to a neighbor, and he loaded a diesel tractor, and it bent the cable ends on the bed, the tailgate didnt bend, but I knew it had to be heavy.......

 

The owners manual should tell you how much weight you can put on the tailgate. Having said that, I load a 702 lb. ATV with my 205 lb. self riding it and I've never had a problem in any pickup truck I've ever owned.

My thought is that the tractor with front end loader that was being used was pushing down on the tailgate at the same time it was pushing the garden tractor into the truck, without the tractor operator realizing it. Therefore, more force was on the tailgate than just the weight of the garden tractor.

 

I really doubt that a garden tractor alone could destroy a steel tailgate like that! My slightly-bigger-than-usual lawn tractor is still light enough for me to pick up the rear end, and I would bet yours is quite a bit lighter! I agree with WXboy; the other tractor was probably putting a lot of weight on the tailgate.

 

Anything on the tailgate that would verify that is a Ford mfg'd tailgate? Not that I don't believe the dealer..........
I used to sell and install drop in bedliners years ago. This was before the days of using original fasteners to secure the tailgate cover. OEM gates were tough to get a screw into. Offshore replacement tailgates would take a screw with practically no effort. Much thinner material.

 

The tractor is an Allis Chalmers 410, about 1973 vintage. I'm thinking 5-600 pound range. I thought about the loader pushing down on the ramps, but I don't believe that happened. Possible, but I don't think so. I don't think the loader had power down. Here's a picture of the tractor, and the tailgate on the truck.

 

Also, the manager of the body shop didn't think it was enough weight to do it. After he talked to the dealer is when he said they said it was too heavy. I've always loaded tractor's, refrigerators, etc, on to the tailgate, never had a problem, with this truck, or others.

 

This is a very sore subject with me because my beloved '02 F250 did the same thing (not nearly as bad) loading alfalfa. We were in the field, a guy who weighed maybe 160 was on the tailgate and I was heaving the 85# bales up to him to stack.

When I got home and unloaded and tried to close the tailgate I saw that it was bowed out about 2". I thought WTF, my warranty was long gone but I called my local dealer parts guy, he laughed and said "we go through a lot of tailgates around here". I even called Ford at Dearborn and after a BIG hassle actually spoke to someone in their engineering dept. Guess what he said..... Gee that's the first I've heard of anything like that. So I ended up buying a used one and always took it off when loading anything.

P.S. Ok, I just looked up Allis-Chalmers 410 specs, that tractor w/o the snow blower weighs 800 lbs. so I guess you could add another 200-300 lbs for it, that's a lot of weight...........