Dan,
Yes, broken buttons. Really poor design. The broken buttons were at the top edge of the metal tailgate - there are NO BUTTONS at the outside face of the tailgate. That's where mine was loose (mostly right side) and where there SHOULD HAVE BEEN PINS or something there. Especially that the top rail has a large lip that I always use to lift and close the tailgate.
To remove the top rail:
1. Remove the 7 screws that hold the plastic panel from the inside of the tailgate with a Star screwdriver #27.
2. Pop the Button clips at the bottom of the tailgate (4 - I believe)
3. Push the plastic panel towards the bottom of the tailgate or towards the bed of the truck then lift the plastic panel out - BOTTOM FIRST. You will now expose the inside of the metal tailgate as well as the inside edge of the plastic top rail.
4. Pop the 7 plastic buttons out of the top inside edge of the tailgate rail. These are the ones that I totally broke off. Grrrrrr rackem - sackem - frickin $^@(^&$@%#$@*&^#@
5. CAREFULLY lift the top rail straight up (there are clips there as well that hold the plastic top rail to the top of the metal tailgate). Those are gone too now!!
That's it.
To put back...
Take a trip to the store (I went to Bennet Auto Supply) and get all new plastic buttons cause I broke every last freakin one of them!!
Reverse the order put everything back.
The original reason I opened it up was two fold.
1. The top rail came loose so (as suggested by someone in this Forum) I put a piece of 1" wide 3M 2-sided tape under the top rail - under the outside vertical face of the tailgate top plastic rail. WORKS GREAT NOW!! Solid as hell!
2. As I mentioned in another post, I just bought an ATV that sits in the bed of the truck and I have over 300 pounds sitting on the tailgate. When I brought it home from the dealer, the plastic panel on the inside of the tailgate was bearing the 300 pounds of weight and was bending up. I wanted to make sure I knew what was underneath the plastic panel to see if I was causing any damage to the tailgate. Glad I opened it cause I saw that there were large cutouts in the metal tailgate exactly where the back tires of the ATV were sitting - that's what was causing the plastic to bend.
I have since decided to cut a large piece pf plywood (that's for the encouragement Les) as a sub-floor to help distribute the weight of the ATV across the bed and help relieve some of the weight on the tailgate.
I'll be doing that over the weekend. I'm going riding next weekend so I need to make the fix right away.
Hope this helps!
