Scott B.
Adventurist
Tailgate Reinforcement
Between all I've read about the Tacoma tailgates easily bending, and sitting on the uncomfortable ribbed plastic tailgate cover, I decided to upgrade the tailgate cover.
Looking around, I found Mobtown Offroad was having a sale. I ordered the tailgate reinforcement skin and cap. I did not order their hardware kit, as I had some leftover rivnuts from my sleeping platform install as well as the installation tool.
Here are the parts, as delivered
And the mounting hardware - pan head 1/4-20 bolts, rivnuts, backing washers
To begin, remove everything from the tailgate, including the plastic nuts the cover screws go into. All the nut holes get drilled out to accept the rivnuts. I also cleaned all the dirt/dust out of the tailgate.
The tailgate skin came with some insulation tape, but not enough to cover the entire tailgate. I finished the job with some pipe insulation tape I had on hand. I also put some sound deadening on the inside of the tailgate. At the very least, it makes the tailgate sound less tinny when closing.
Here, the rivnuts are installed.
I have been using a Bedrug tailgate rug, and wanted to use it with the new skin. However, it did not want to mount the same way. I ended up sewing bias tape on the top edge (it did not have any from the factory) and sewing Velcro to the back of the Bedrug, and sticking Velcro to the tailgate skin.
Works great!
Between all I've read about the Tacoma tailgates easily bending, and sitting on the uncomfortable ribbed plastic tailgate cover, I decided to upgrade the tailgate cover.
Looking around, I found Mobtown Offroad was having a sale. I ordered the tailgate reinforcement skin and cap. I did not order their hardware kit, as I had some leftover rivnuts from my sleeping platform install as well as the installation tool.
Here are the parts, as delivered
And the mounting hardware - pan head 1/4-20 bolts, rivnuts, backing washers
To begin, remove everything from the tailgate, including the plastic nuts the cover screws go into. All the nut holes get drilled out to accept the rivnuts. I also cleaned all the dirt/dust out of the tailgate.
The tailgate skin came with some insulation tape, but not enough to cover the entire tailgate. I finished the job with some pipe insulation tape I had on hand. I also put some sound deadening on the inside of the tailgate. At the very least, it makes the tailgate sound less tinny when closing.
Here, the rivnuts are installed.
I have been using a Bedrug tailgate rug, and wanted to use it with the new skin. However, it did not want to mount the same way. I ended up sewing bias tape on the top edge (it did not have any from the factory) and sewing Velcro to the back of the Bedrug, and sticking Velcro to the tailgate skin.
Works great!