and there goes another tailgate window
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From: shamokin pa
and there goes another tailgate window
been awhile since ive posted in here, but got some bad news and good news...
about a week or so ago decided to wash the bronco and get all the grime from winter off it, after that decided to look at the tailgate window and see why its not going up the way it should. so lowered the window and gate. my dad started taking the screw for the acess panal out he walked away to get something and i went to follow him, next thing i here, is POOF. and there lays my window on the ground in pieces
noone was touching the gate at all. my question is, could it have been the torsion bar, ive read several posts on here saying that if the torsion bar lets loose it could bust the window.
my next question is if i take the torsion bar out could that be a bad idea (other then the fact of making the gate feel heavier)
The good news is i found a gate and window of an 86, took a chance and picked it up from the salvage yard, and it all bolted up the same and works perfectly. the gate is alittle rusty..(bottom was fixed with diamond plate) but all in all it works good for now, better then having plastic taped to the gate and top to keep the weather out. My next decision will be to take the torsion bar out of my old gate and repair the rust and swap the window out of the new gate into that gate, or to just repair the rust on the new gate and leave it at that.
also picked up a push bar for 20 bucks from the salvage yard, has a small dent on the top but theres mounts for off road lights so once i install the lights it should cover most of that up
about a week or so ago decided to wash the bronco and get all the grime from winter off it, after that decided to look at the tailgate window and see why its not going up the way it should. so lowered the window and gate. my dad started taking the screw for the acess panal out he walked away to get something and i went to follow him, next thing i here, is POOF. and there lays my window on the ground in pieces
noone was touching the gate at all. my question is, could it have been the torsion bar, ive read several posts on here saying that if the torsion bar lets loose it could bust the window. my next question is if i take the torsion bar out could that be a bad idea (other then the fact of making the gate feel heavier)
The good news is i found a gate and window of an 86, took a chance and picked it up from the salvage yard, and it all bolted up the same and works perfectly. the gate is alittle rusty..(bottom was fixed with diamond plate) but all in all it works good for now, better then having plastic taped to the gate and top to keep the weather out. My next decision will be to take the torsion bar out of my old gate and repair the rust and swap the window out of the new gate into that gate, or to just repair the rust on the new gate and leave it at that.
also picked up a push bar for 20 bucks from the salvage yard, has a small dent on the top but theres mounts for off road lights so once i install the lights it should cover most of that up
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Joined: Sep 2002
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From: Gateway to the West
The gates are essentially identical, so which one you decide to keep really depends on which one is in better shape/requires less work to bring up to your standards.
The most frequent failure isn't actually the torsion bar but the gusset near the floor of the tailgate that holds the left-hand end of the bar in place inside the gate. (Yes, the bar runs the full width of the gate inside.) The gusset rusts until it is too thin to hold up against the pressure exerted on it by the torsion bar (especially when the gate is down) then BANG! The gate glass suddenly looks like a jigsaw puzzled BEFORE you put it together. There is a parts explosion diagram in my gallery of a typical tailgate assembly.
The most frequent failure isn't actually the torsion bar but the gusset near the floor of the tailgate that holds the left-hand end of the bar in place inside the gate. (Yes, the bar runs the full width of the gate inside.) The gusset rusts until it is too thin to hold up against the pressure exerted on it by the torsion bar (especially when the gate is down) then BANG! The gate glass suddenly looks like a jigsaw puzzled BEFORE you put it together. There is a parts explosion diagram in my gallery of a typical tailgate assembly.
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