Wagon Gear tailgate lid

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western flyer

western flyer

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Encinitas, CA
Kevin at Wagon Gear made me a tailgate lid with SS locking latches and a dog friendly (rough surface for traction) lid. Very nice. Kevin does great work and is great to work with. This thing is bomber. I weigh 225 lbs. and I can easily stand on the middle of the gate. I know this has been covered elsewhere, so I will keep it brief.

Kevin includes a cardboard template for cutting the gate.
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Mark per the template, take a deep breath, and cut.
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Not too bad using a jigsaw. Need to be careful of the lic. plate light wires.
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Last edited:
The piece that gets cut out weights about 5 lbs. The lid I estimate weighs about 20 lbs. The lid is a steel frame with a plastic door.

I painted the cuts with primer and re-worked the lic. light wires to get them to lay flat. I added some split loom to help protect the wires.
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Just a question about the rough vs. the smooth tailgate lid...how rough is the rough one? Is it just dimpled plastic or is it really rough? Is there any way you could take a very close up picture of the surface texture? If a large dog was jumping onto the tailgate would the rough one offer enough traction to keep the dog from slipping? The reason I ask is because I'm trying to decide between the rough lid vs. just getting the smooth lid and applying grip tape (like on skateboards). I know my dog when she sees me loading up for an adventure comes running to join in and if I get the tailgate down before she just jumps in over it (I'm still amazed she can clear the thing) she is going at a very quick speed and I'd hate for her to get injured cuz shes used to the carpet being there.
 
I bought 12 sq. ft. of Dynamat. More than enough. You could do it with 8 sq ft. pretty easily. I bought the dynamat door kit. Expensive stuff.

The dynamat provides protection for the gate and what you put in it, light reflection inside (to help see the small stuff), and (of course) sound damping. The dynamat is heavy, like the lid. I doubled it up to protect the wires in there.
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MYSHERPA,

The Grip Plastic Option for the lid is pretty rough, with a substantial "hand", and quite "grippy." My Labrador will not have a problem with traction on the lid. The frame is steel with a rough coating, but it is not tactile/soft or grippy; traction of the frame is, nevertheless, OK considering the surface area of just the frame.

I do not know what the normal lid is like, but I am not worried about traction for my dog on this set up.

I attached the best pic I have of the lid surface. I will add another one for you later.
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I wonder if anyone has ever thought of adding a second set of license plate bolts for the bottom of the plate while they have their tailgates opened up like this. Its always bugged me having the bottom half of the license plate flapping against the body. I put some 3M double sided tape on the bottom to prevent this, but putting a second set of bolts in would look better I think...anyway, sorry about the hijack, back to the lid install...
 
western flyer said:
MYSHERPA,

The Grip Plastic Option for the lid is pretty rough, with a substantial "hand", and quite "grippy." My Labrador will not have a problem with traction on the lid. The frame is steel with a rough coating, but it is not tactile/soft or grippy; traction of the frame is, nevertheless, OK considering the surface area of just the frame.

I do not know what the normal lid is like, but I am not worried about traction for my dog on this set up.

I attached the best pic I have of the lid surface. I will add another one for you later.
Click to expand...

Thanks a ton for the info, this will help me make my decision.
 
I'd do that to put my audio stuff in there ;)

Clean mod btw!
 
MYSHERPA,

Thinking about it more (and the many dogs I have had), I think you should go the Grip Plastic route, and then either introduce the surface to your dog (so she can learn it), or maybe add the grip tape to the frame only. The Grip Plastic is $15 more and should be more than enough traction for the dog on the door portion.

Cheers,

Jon
 
I never thought about a second set of lic. plate bolts to hold the bottom of the plate, but it would be uber easy after cutting open the gate. I used one of those furniture foot pads (with a sticky back) under my lic. plate to keep it from rattling.
 
I used a lot of dynamat, covering most of the sheet metal. The gate with nothing in it, but with the new lid and dynamat installed, is quite heavy.

Kevin said I (225 lbs) could stand on the gate...so I did, and it hardly flexed at all.

The hardware Kevin uses is 18.8 stainless. Nice stuff. I used medium threadlocker. Holes lined up very nice.

I ordered the lid with optional stainless compression latches with locks. These are not cheap, but extremely well made with great finish work. Everybody that sees these latches loves them. I figured I just might want to lock something in there someday, thus the locks (keyed alike).

I will put a small tool bag, a siphon, a tow strap, a snatch strap, jumper cables, and a tire repair kit in there. I thought about forcing my mondo first air kit in there, but I want to keep it cool temp-wise, so it will go elsewhere.

Thanks for the nice comments. I am stoked and even the :princess:likes it, though she does not know what it (really) cost. She wants to get all the maps in her (PS) door pocket in there...

Kevin rocks.
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that is very cool! great work.
 
NLXTACY said:
I've got 100% the identical lid. Packed full of crap it's pretty damn heavy. My wife complains because the tailgate is no longer a one handed operation.
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I have one loaded up as well, it does get pretty heavy, but the storage space gained is excellent.
 
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