THANK YOU! The weekend after I read this thread, I was going with my son for a little fun time at the farm. He had his Polaris 600 on the back of his 150 with the rear tires resting on the tailgate. The tailgate cables were as tight as guitar strings and I remembered your post. We moved the ATV further into the bed and had no problem. Thanks again.
Dono

 

I have also done this on my '99 Mazda B4000 4x4. I was loading my 350lb ATV into the bed of the truck when all of a sudden both cables snapped. This caused the tailgate to hit the bumper which resulted in a crease on each side of the tailgate. I replaced the rusted out cables with some aftermarket units from one of the local auto stores. I think I paid around $15 for them.
ERIC

 

This sure is a nice little statics problem. You also need to account for the tailgate supports where it attaches to the bed of the truck. Those supports will also help to take some of the load off of the straps. I think the problem is when you start to generate a higher moment on the tailgate. For example, you can probably place a point load of say...600 lbs on a spot on the tailgate closer to the bed without a problem, but placing 600 lbs on the edge of the tailgate will make a huge moment that the tailgate straps can not withstand and will fail. So like someone said previously, the critical point is probably near the pivot point where alot of the weight is supported at the edge of the tailgate where the rails sit. After considering all this, it sure makes me want to go buy new straps since I do haul a 4 wheeler around every now and then.

 

I know you're angry and all, but I am not seeing how this is "clearly" faulty straps, nor how this is Ford's fault. You're an uninformed owner putting a heavy load on these tiny straps. If you had checked first, you probably would have avoided the situtation because, regardless of weight distribution, moment, etc... 800 lb > 500 lb. I can sympathize with you because I know how much damaging your truck sucks, but I must respectfully disagree with your decision to blame it on the company. I'm sure I can't find 10 people who follow the handbook to a "t" every time they drive and have all of the proper maintenance done on time to their vehicle. If you didn't take the time to find out what kind of force your tailgate could handle compared to the force you were putting on it, you can't blame anybody but yourself for what happened.

 

I've looked in my 99's manual several times & was never able to find anything lited in it about the tailgate. Wonder if it was omitted by mistake that year.

Which section is it listed in on other model years????

It seems I remember reading the 500 lb. limit figure somewhere, but danged if I can find it in my 99's manual now!!!!!

 

The problem is that the metal strap is regular steel and when the insolation cracks water gets in there and rusts it out making it weak and vonerable to breaking. Other truck that have the straps have the same problem, such as the newer chevy silverado. If they had used stainless steel then there wouldn't be rust and there wouldn't be an issue. I guess that $0.15 that ford saves on each truck adds up.

 

They should bring back the ol tailgate chains that they used in the older f-150's. I like that old school look! Honestly, if they make a Ranger about the size of the old F-100's and use tailgate chains and stamp FORD on the tailgate...i would buy one in a second!

 

How about the old flatbar type device they used beginning mid to late sixties. I never had one those break.

 

You know bassawy, I started to post something about tailgate chains the othe day, but I figured it was so long before most of you youngsters time, you'd think I was nuts LOL. Yup texan2004 I remember those straps/bars that folded up when you raised the gate. Seems to me they had a notch or two, to allow adjustment on the ammount of tailgate drop you'd like.

 

My old chevy has the flat bar hinge style. I've set complete engines on the tailgate of that truck before while loading them and it doesnt budge. The only dis advantage is they rattle a little when i go over bumps.

 

I don't intend to be rude, but I am thinking that these are considered light duty trucks. Just look at how light and thin the tailgate is compared to even a 1/2 ton truck of any brand.

I have always been told that a vehicle's parts are kinda put together with a given task in mind (ie: light truck - light duty components, heavy duty truck - heavy duty components). Even though they are supposed to allow for a max of 500 pounds on the tailgate. I would expect that they were not engineered with the intent of carrying 500-800 pounds on their tailgate on a regular basis. At least not right out of the factory.

Common sense has to come out somewhere here. The equation of "big heavy thing" + "small light tailgate" + "likely light duty cables" = "possible issues down the road" is something I would surely think of. But thats just me.

The rusting out of your cables really sucks. I feel bad for you that it happened that way and as someone said before, no one likes to damage their trucks. But I have talked to alot of people who owned trucks with cable hangers and pretty much everyone seems to see them always breaking, and rusting.

On my truck one of my cables is busted and the other one is not too far behind. I am just going to put those metal hinged hangers someone else was talking about. I have also never seen them break and you can see these ones on the verge of failure long before they do.

 

Well what do you know?! Yesterday afternoon I went outside to wash and wax my 01 Ranger, and wound up on my butt in the driveway. While holding a bucket of soapy water, I (I weigh 195 lbs.) stepped onto the tailgate to wash the roof and BOTH cables snapped. This resulted in a wet and embarrassing fall, and a nice crease in the tailgate - which is now in the body shop. I know that this is a "light duty" truck, but I'm mad! I guess I should just change the cables every year so this doesn't happen again - that's pathetic, but cheaper than another trip to the body shop.

 

That should not have happened. Glad to hear it was just embarrassing and you didn't get hurt. What condition were the cables in? Just curious.

 

Thanks. On the outside, the cables appeared in great/new shape. On the inside, they were rusted/decayed and very brittle, although they didn't appear to be NEAR as rusty as the bottom of my driver's side door before having it fixed!

 

I did a pair on an '03 ranger... 31,000 miles today...

One was broken and where it was broke rust was spilling out.

The other one had cracked insulation... i'm sure water got in there and.. well you know the rest...

It does seem to be becoming an issue, maybe a few people will get hurt and ford will issue a recall...