5th wheel tailgate

[sawmill]

Hi everyone,
I priced some 5th wheel tailgates for my pickup. Way to expensive. So I decided to build my own. I had an old display rack I got from a yard sale for free, so I cut it up and used the framework. I utalized the bends in the tubing in my design. I used a piece of FRP panel from home depot and pop riveted it on. My total cost was $38. I made no modifications to the truck. I even put a lock on it so some bottom feeder couldn't steel it from the Walmart parking lot.

(Just built it last summer. I forgot to set the date on my camera.)

 

[rob82]

Wow. Looks awsome. Good job

 

[Daren Todd]

Looks good . You've gotten some milage out of that tailgate if the dates on the photo are correct

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Love everything except the FRP.
Reason: The FRP will hold too much air and will get stressed and fail, expanded metal would be a much better option.

Or

 

[Lil Foot]

Very nice! I tend to agree with NIW, but I have no data to back it up…. it would make an interesting experiment to take a long trip, check mpg, then alter it so air could pass through & re-check mpg.
Years ago I bought a steel fiver gate at a garage sale, still new in box, for $135, used it for about 2 yrs & then the RH pivot point fell apart, rendering it useless. It was so poorly built I didn't even try to repair it, but I found this all aluminum, TIG welded, gate for $225. It's as stiff as the stock gate, much lighter, and has been flawless for 10yrs.

 

[85Hokie]

Very nice! I tend to agree with NIW, but I have no data to back it up…. it would make an interesting experiment to take a long trip, check mpg, then alter it so air could pass through & re-check mpg.
Years ago I bought a steel fiver gate at a garage sale, still new in box, for $135, used it for about 2 yrs & then the RH pivot point fell apart, rendering it useless. It was so poorly built I didn't even try to repair it, but I found this all aluminum, TIG welded, gate for $225. It's as stiff as the stock gate, much lighter, and has been flawless for 10yrs.

Lil Foot,

that brings up a good point, when I was younger, I would ride with the ol' tailgate down on long trips....thinking that was the "intelligent" thing to do.....

ya'll remember the mythbusters episode that took two identical trucks and ran them with gates down and up .....they were shocked too, the one that had the gate UP go better mileage......

here is a young buck explaining what curly and mo said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xocaC15WwA0

just like the one that had golf ball dimples all over the car, it too got better mileage than a "smooth" car of the same weight.

so........what to do ? I would leave the cover on the gate

 

[Daren Todd]

That same episode of myth busters tested tonneau covers, toppers and the mesh tailgate nets. Tail gate nets got the best mpg's. Can't remember where tonneau covers and camper tops fell, I believe it was somewhere around the same as tail gate up. Then followed by tail gate up, tail gate off and last was tail gate down.

 

[Lil Foot]

ya'll remember the mythbusters episode that took two identical trucks and ran them with gates down and up .....they were shocked too, the one that had the gate UP go better mileage......

Awhile back we covered my opinion of mythbusters so I won't go there, but I have heard there is a lot of controversy on the subject even before mythbusters. My two main reasons for the louvered fifth wheel gate is ease of hookup/unhooking, and on one of the first trips I took it to the dunes, I saw something moving in the corner of my eye as I was roaring down the highway- turned out to be the firewood I piled in the front of the bed. It was "floating" just outside the rear window on the air trapped in front of the fifth wheel. No re-occurences of that with this tailgate.

 

[D2Cat]

In the early '80's Ford hires aeronautical engineers that had been laid of at Boeing, I think it was, to study the tailgate down question. They had it figured out way before myth-busters existed.

Put tailgate down, more fuel consumed.

 

[coachgeo]

I bet tail gate REMOVED would have got best millage. Tailgate down is not same as tailgate removed. that additional length sticking out must have caused an air swirl / vacuum the truck had to drag along. Tailgate gone would have results like the net which had highest results.

 

[Tooljunkie]

My buddy is a float plane pilot, tied an old bedframe (springs and flat straps) to the underside of the aircraft.the drag was so bad they landed and wrapped a tarp around it so they could fly safely. I hauled an old satellite dish-8' mesh. It hovered in the box of the truck as we drove down the highway. A solid type fiberglass dish didnt do that.