New Tailgate for our Silverado

We bought our 2004 Chevy Silverado 2500HD new. It was only a few months after paying it off in 2010 that the rust began showing up. The first place that it became evident was on the tailgate. I had the truck in for some body work after hitting a deer in 2011, and the guy said he wouldn’t even give me a price on fixing that rust. He said that he could make it look good as new but it’d be back in two weeks. He blamed a defect in the design.

Primed (from the factory) tailgate as it came out of the box.

I found a new, primed tailgate online for around $85. It did not include any hardware, but that was fine since I would need to paint it anyway, and I’d want the hardware off for that.

I’ve heard that aftermarket tailgates are not built as strong as the factory tailgates are, but since I’m not using the truck for heavy work any longer, it should be okay. If I need to haul anything heavy (like the lawn tractor), I’ll just take the tailgate off and put the ramps directly up onto the bed.

For about $65, I found a kit that includes all of the hardware (handle, bezel, rods, clips, latches, and the tailgate-mounted portion of the hinges). This was about a third of what it would have cost to purchase all of the hardware individually.

I also found a tailgate trim cap for around $30, but I wound up sending that back for two reasons: 1.) It didn’t fit; 2) Even if it did fit, it would have been incompatible with a truck cap or tonneau cover. I am going to get some 3M double-sided automotive tape and reuse the trim cap from the old tailgate.

Per the paint store salesman’s recommendation, I roughed up the primer a bit with a scotch pad. This will give the finish coat a better bonding surface.

After the first application of finish coat. I wound up putting about 5 coats on before I felt ready to start the clear coat. It would have been best to suspend the tailgate somehow for a better paint job, but I do not have any sort of stand or hanger, so I leaned it up against some weighted sawhorses. The paint went on noticeably better when the can was held straight up-and-down.

It remains to be seen how the paint job will hold up. I had a local auto paint distributor mix up an exact match for our Chevy’s silver birch metallic, and with the clear coat that he recommended, I spent just over $100 on paint.

It took most of a week to get a finish coat that I was happy with.

Part of the new hardware that came in the kit. There were no instructions included with any of the parts I bought online, but it was easy enough to figure out. I didn’t need to, but if worse came to worse, I could have always deconstructed the old tailgate to figure out how to reconstruct the new one.

I still have to put on the trim cap (which means I still need to take the old trim cap off of the other tailgate). I am also going to try to re-use the “Chevrolet” and “Silverado” badges from the old tailgate, since it would almost double what I’ve put into the tailgate to get new emblems!

I just realized I don’t have an “after” picture of the tailgate. I’ll try to take one and get it up here sooner or later.