The Stovebolt Site Forums Welcome! Welcome Centre Do It Yourself (DITY) Gallery 1946 Chevy 1/2Ton in Utah - "Here We Go"

Installed the tailgate today. Pretty straight forward, but I did have one issue. The hinge has two bolts. Lower bolt/nut can be accessed from the bottom bed stake. The upper bolt goes into a nut that is tack welded on the inside and cannot be reached from the same bottom access as the lower bolt. Well, yesterday I had to drill out a broken upper bolt and when I used an extractor, the tacked nut broke off. I had to figure out how I was going to mount the upper bolt. My first thought was to just drill all the way through the bed stake pocket and use a longer bolt. But I ended up putting the bolt through the hinge and hole, then using a one of those flexible grabby things (I don't know what it's called, but you push one end and the other reaches out four little claws to grab stuff) and I was able to placed the flat washer, lock washer and nut. Just held the nut in place and screwed the bolt until it grab. I don't have a 14" long 1/2" box wrench, so I used an extend magnet to lower a 1/2" wrench to hold the nut and tightened the bolt from the outside. Unconventional, but it worked.

Later a friend said I should have just lowered a bolt down the stake bed using the grabby thing, poked the bolt through and just had the nut/washers on the outside. Maybe that would have been easier, but it wouldn't look the same as the other bolts.