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when I removed my tailgate I broke 3 of the mounting bolts

are the stake pockets strong enough to just drill through them and use longer bolts to mount the tailgate

I'm gonna do it but I'm gonna reinforce the stake pockets with flat stock

52PLOWERWAGON wrote:I'm gonna do it but I'm gonna reinforce the stake pockets with flat stock

I am in the process of putting my bed back together and I can get you photos of what your going to be up against. I don't think you'll be able to do what you think because the tail gate mounting bolts go into an L bracket that have welded nuts on them.

my plan is to drill through both sides of the stake pocket and add a plate to the other side to distribute the load/pressure evenly

you could post pics if you like

sounds like you should pull the rear x member on the box. remove box bed bolts from rear x member drill off the heads of the fine thread fillips attaching the bed floor to the x member.break remaining L bracket bolts and remove x member. once off pull L brackets extract bolts.
if you just bolt through the box sections and bolt it will collapse. you could weld in pipe but that would take longer than doing it right.

angle iron?
channel ?

The parts truck that I removed the tailgate from for RMS has this modification. They bored right through the whole thing, and used carriage bolts with a piece of flatbar to back it up. As RMS has already stated, its not strong and the bed side corner is bent and collapsed in some. I have no idea what is inside and if they left the angle support bracket but its not coming apart and will likely fall to the gas axe one day. I would recommend that you take it down to pieces and fix it properly now. The brackets inside the bottom corners are a bit of a mystery to most of us, but I think M-11 or one of the other members here posted pictures of the brackets after removing them and the rear cross member, Once apart, you would be able to repair or make new brackets and put it together the way it was designed. And, more importantly, take it apart again in 20 yrs when you do a new restoration or repairs. Don't laugh, I have one truck that I bought surplus in 1977 and its been in various states of disassembly several times and I wish I had used never seize on some of those bed screws back when... Have fun with you truck, whatever you decide to do.

if I have channel that's what ill use

I easy outed the bolts finally

tailgate is installed the right way

Glad to hear that you got the old broken bolts out and the repair finished.

Bert