I found a half moon shaped hard rubber item under my tail gate. I think it is half of the tailgate bushing. It appears to have a spot where a piece broke off. The tail gate hinge is sloppy now. What's the fix here?

 

LMC sells replacement plastic pieces that sit in the pivot, along with other places I’m sure.

https://www.lmctruck.com/1980-96-for...tailgate-parts

I replaced mine and made a big difference to reduce slip and smooth out the pivoting of the tailgate.

 

I haven't removed my tailgate before. You have any advice on how to do that? I'm thinking of replacing the support cables too. I see LMC has those too so may as well upgrade both bushings and cables while I'm at it.

 

Open the tailgate about halfway so it’s sitting at about a 45 degree angle and then pull the passenger side of the tailgate away from the box. This side pivots but has a slot opening at the bottom of the tailgate which is how the tailgate slides off the pivot.
The drivers side pivots on a round **** and will just come off easily after you’ve taken the passenger side off.

Hope that makes sense.

 

Yes, I think I've got it. Thanks.

 

Replaced my tailgate bushing inserts and cables today. Both sides were gone! They wear out and eventually fall out. I never noticed the driver side being missing. It wasn't until the passenger side broke that I could tell. So I'm glad I got both the left and right inserts.

The cables I got from LMC were not perfect OEM replacements. I had to make modifications to the cables to make them work. They changed the tailgate ends and provide a tabbed washer and bushing that you bolt through. They supplied the same washer for both sides and the way the tabs are formed it only worked on the right side. The left side had to be modified by removing one of the double tabs on the washer. Additionally I had to clip off about 1/8" of the keeper spring on the truck ends of the cables so they could pass the T shaped top retainer bolt. Cables may be slightly shorter than the originals as the tailgate is a little higher than originally but it's slight enough that it isn't readily noticeable.

Overall I'm happy with them but too bad they didn't reverse engineer the OEM better.

An installation note for the cables, be sure the top bolt of the gate latch is tight before removing the bottom bolt that attaches to the cable. If the top is loose the speed nut on the bottom bolt gets hung up so check the top bolt for tightness first.