mikodel

I had such a BAD experience unloading my beautiful CBR929RR motorcycle when the tailgate LET GO! If you have an older truck like my '02 Taco, replace the tailgate support cables immediately. They don't look so rusted but inside the nice black insulation covering they just go to s__t.

I got mine on Amazon from AutoPartsDirectToYou or something, and paid next to nothing for them. No, they're not quite as robust as the OEM, but I'm gonna be changing them at least once again anyway before the truck is sold. I think they were like $15 for the pair.

I must have angels watching over me, cause neither the bike nor the person on the ground helping it down the ramp sustained any injury or damage. But he could have been seriously hurt or killed. I was standing on the gate easing the bike down when it happend, which means those rusted strands were supporting 170lbs of me and 430lbs of machinery. Thank God the ramp wedged in the dirt, and rested on my oversized Smitty tube bumper. The fact that the ramp was a very long 10ft was critical, because my truck is lifted so I have to use a long ramp. The gate, instead of falling all the way down, stopped at a severe angle, but it was enough to hold the alum plates on the end of my 2 hinged 2X10's. Yeah it dented a little across the sheet metal from the license plate casing, but when I see that dent, I'm not pissed. I'm grateful.

Replace your cables now.

Andrewb1369n

Just had to do the same thing. Got lucky and didn't have a bad incident but I've seen it happen before. Someone pulled themselves up on the tailgate to unload something and they got done and went to step down and the cables BOTH broke and the guy fell on his ass and f#%^ed up the tailgate and about broke his neck. Not good.