Text, Install and Photos by Smalls

Tailgates, they are perfect for football games and farm trucks, custom trucks mini or full size, who needs them? For this tech article Gauge’s own Smalls teams up with Fender Bender Int. and Auto Extremes to show you the in’s and outs of installing a full tailgate skin.

First we need to discuss the equipment needed to complete this fairly simple task. The main item needed if course is a welder. A 110 welder will work but its best to use a 220 welder with gas. A grinder of some sort is also needed. We opted to use 36 grit Blendex pads on a standard grinder. The wire speed and voltage was set on 20 and 3 respectfully.

Step 1: Removing unused items
This is what you end up with after all the useless items are gone. The tailgate, rear bumper obviously have to go. We took the bed off the frame, for us it makes it a little easy to work with. In our case we scraped the taillights since we have lights in the roll pan. You can get skins with or with out taillights mounted in just about any location you want.

Step 2: Test Fit
A simple test fit of the skin is needed to make sure for one that it is the correct for the bed. Check all body lines and make sure they line up and the length is correct. This will more than likely take more than one person to do. After the test fit its time to break out the grinder and remove any paint in the area where the skin has to be welded.

Step 3: Reinforcing Bars
Reinforcing bar are installed. One to have something to weld the skin to other than just the outer edges, but more than anything to replace the support the tailgate gave incase of an accident. We spaced our bars out about 8 inches apart. We used 4 bars total. One bar is used at the very top, two in the middle and one at the bottom. (We’ll show the bottom bar as step 6) This will vary on other beds. Be sure not to put the bars at the very edge of the bed. The skin has to line up with the outer edges. It’s best to place the bars just inside or about the thickness of skin in the jam. Weld 3 sides of the bar. The front side (side against the skin) does not need to be welded.

	Step 4: Tack Skin into place Starting at the top of the bed use small tack welds about one and a half inches apart. Be sure to allow plenty of cooling time between welds. You may want to alternate sides between welds. Some trimming maybe needed but not a lot. Once the skin is completely tacked on it should look like this.

	Step 5: Tack welding complete Continue tacking until the sides of the skin look like this. Remember watch your heat on the metal. You do not want to get the metal too hot to the point it warps. Now on the inside of the skin tack the bars to the skin. Again spread out the welds so it doesn’t warp.

Step 6: Save your roll pan
We installed one last bar after the skin was completely welded in place. It is put at the very bottom of the bed in hopes of saving it from being ripped off. You may want to add some metal at the back of your frame that will be a little below the bed for extra drag protection.

Step 7: Grind smooth

Once all the welding is complete its time to grind the welds smooth are see if there are any places that need to be spotted again. Once again when you are grinding don’t not work in one area for a long time. This again will heat up and warp the metal.

Shopping Resource:

Get a tailgate skin just like this for your truck @ Gauge Store! (Click Here)

Article Sources:

Fender Bender International - www.fbirides.com 1-877-FBI-MINI (324-6464)

Auto Extremes - Conyers, GA - www.autoextremes.net 770-761-0971

In the coming months:
We’ll show you the process of making and installing tail light fillers and then task of building a full sheet metal bed. After all that is complete the bed will be wiped with filler, sanded smooth and prepped for paint.