MORryde HD Tailgate Hinges

[mrblaine]

most likely the brackets that ties into the roll cage is a must as Jerry was saying. Did your kit come with spacers for the snubbers? The ones that came with my MORryde were about 1” thick.

The problem is how the rear of the TJ is constructed. The only two things that prevent the top the tail gate opening from closing up or spreading apart are the end of the C pillar being bolted to the top of the inner fender and about 10 or so spot welds below the tail light to the outer face of the torque box for the body mounts. Load the gate and that crap will move since the bracing from the down leg of the C pillar isn't doing that much really. If you want to verify that, it really isn't hard. Go unbolt it, grap aholt with both hands and watch how much effort it takes to slide it over so you can't get the bolts back in. Doesn't really take that much.

 

[mrblaine]

Gotta use a level on the hinges and the tailgate will be properly aligned with the latch and not drop down, also the FSM only has the bolt torque at 20lbs. I bumped mine up to 25lbs and no isssues for me.

NO, you don't need a level on hinges. They only need to be reasonably parallel with each other and square to the body lines so the hinge points don't bind when you open the gate. No amount of level will compensate for the weight of the tire.

 

[mrblaine]

Just sayin you do not need to pry, wedge. With gate in the hole and latched, hinges level and torqued reinforcement plates on. The gate should not move or sag when opened.

If only that were true. You have to adjust it high to start, then test fit with the weight of the tire on and adjust from there. If you lock everything in place with the tire on and the gate latched, when you open it, it will sag.

 

[P man]

I solved this problem by not carrying a spare

 

[mrblaine]

That's why it's sagging.

Installation of that brace won't solve his problem.

 

[mrblaine]

If you say so.
I assumed the added thickness of the hinge plate matches up with the added thickness of the tailgate reinforcement.
If you have the added thickness (and strength) of corner armor, then you don't need the plate.

You are correct.

 

[mrblaine]

It does not affect the closed position angle at all. If you take a MORryde hinge and lay it on a flat surface in the closed position there is built in tolerance to account for having corner guards. And considering the hinge mounts on top of the rectangular mount on the tailgate itself it is also effectively keeping a similar spacing away from the tailgate in line with the same distance as the thickness of the corner guards.

You may want to take a closer look at the hinge side. The little green arrow says you may have missed something.

 

[mrblaine]

My corner guards are made by Warrior Products. They are not super thick like others. I think they are 1/8" thick. I'm super OCD about things and i looked at the mounting from every angle and thought about the spacing and should i use washers and how the guards were going to affect any potential flat mating surfaces and i'm happy with how things turned out.

The only way for it to be 100% perfect would be to not have corner guards. But a lot of TJ's run corner guards and various thicknesses and then add tailgate reinforcement afterwards so there has to be a certain amount of allowable tolerance to make things fit.

Yes, and what we do is make a spacer that goes under the gate side of the hinge to move the gate back into the stock position.

 

[Rut Row]

That isn't his problem. He has the same problem everyone else does and that his tire isn't correctly balancing the tip out load on the gate by contacting the snubbers. If you get too much lower snubber, the bottom of the gate twists out, if you don't have enough, you get his issue. That has zero to do with the roll bar brace, it is due to it being a 3 point system and it needs to be a 4 point.

I'm about to install a MORryde kit and have three snubbers. I also have a tool for installing nutserts. Based on the above it seems I'd be smart to redo the lower snubber and add a 4th. I assume you have tried that.

 

[Arthurius]

Well, the good news is you can also apply the same level of fuckery to it as well and wind up with something maladjusted

Exactly. I lost patience with it and decided to sell the kit.

Hilariously, I've opted towards being patient and trying to find a non-jerry can Or-Fab or building something custom.

 

[mrblaine]

I'm about to install a MORryde kit and have three snubbers. I also have a tool for installing nutserts. Based on the above it seems I'd be smart to redo the lower snubber and add a 4th. I assume you have tried that.

The 3 point system isn't the snubber arrangement. It is created by the 2 hinge points and the latch. The latch is at the top, so the lower corner of the gate on the same side is controlled by the latch and snubber. Too much snubber length and that corner is sticking out and the gate is being tweaked. Not enough and the tire shake will destroy all of it.

 

[mrblaine]

I just purchased the MORryde Full Tailgate Kit and i have a 35" tire on it. There were two options i found that worked for me (using the full tailgate reinforcement kit). If your spare 33" tire would hit the tailgate (based on wheel backspacing) you could use the 'offset bracket' that comes with the kit using the OEM tire carrier and it will space the tire out. Thats what i did and my wheels are the MOAB wheels with 5" backspacing.

The second option if you want to use the OEM tire carrier is to mount a 1.25" wheel space on the OEM tire carrier then mount your 33" tire to that wheel spacer which will also space your tire out away from the tailgate.

The reason i think the Full MORryde reinforcement kit with all the brackets works well with their offset bracket is it keeps the spare tire 33,35,37 as close to the tailgate as it can possibly be. I don't like the Rugged Ridge spare tire carrier because it keeps the tire too far away from the tailgate and you have to extend the rubber snubbers way too far out.

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Your reply that said you see the issue and want to know how to do it better to fix the out of plane heights between the two sides disappeared even though I can still see it in my email notifications.

The kit hinges are designed to put the gate back in the same spot as stock with the tub side on top of the plate and the gate side on the reinforcement for the gate. If you alter the relationship of the hinge to tub or base with armor or a tail gate skin, then the other side needs the same amount added under it to bring the gate back to flush.

Example would be the Savvy Corners. I designed a 3/16" thick spacer that fit nicely under the gate side of the OEM hinge with the hinge bolt holes in it. After you put the corner armor on and mount the hinges back on, then all you had to do was remove one hinge at a time off of the gate, add the spacer and put it back in place. That keeps the base of the hinges spaced off of the tub and gate the same so the gate goes back exactly where it was before the armor was added.

 

[mrblaine]

Exactly. I lost patience with it and decided to sell the kit.

Hilariously, I've opted towards being patient and trying to find a non-jerry can Or-Fab or building something custom.

The first install is a bit fiddly to figure it all out so yes, some patience is required.

 

[psrivats]

Did you install the bracket that connects it to the rear roll cage's support base? That bracket is meant to transfer the spare tire's weight to the roll cage mounting base.

That's not the problem. Have you installed more than one of these, Jerry? Even with that bracket you mention, the adjustment is fiddly. Blaine explained it correctly, it needs to be a 4 point contact system instead of 3.

Edit: a real nice solution was posted in the now absent Blaine's TJ6 thread. @B00mb00m has a similar one in his build thread. If you study that you'll understand what Blaine is talking about.

 

[sab]

You are correct. I removed the big hinge plate when I installed the full corner armor. Mine are 3/16" aluminum which is a match in thickness to what was removed.
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But you will notice that his are riveted corner covers that are thin sheet metal. That small amount stacked with the big hinge plate shouldn't matter much.

My MORyde plates were 1/4" thick, so I had a small thickness mis-match when I installed the 3/16" thick Genright corners:

I debated in my head whether necessary or not, and in the end, I made hinge spacers for the body-side hinges out of 14 gauge aluminum sheet:

I suspect that 1/16" is not enough to matter, but it was easy to fab those spacers, so I did it.

It's interesting that some of the MORyde kits used 3/16" and some used 1/4" material. I'd rather have saved some weight on the tailgate and had the 3/16" version. I have so many things on my to-do list for this LJ that I'll likely never get to it, but I'd like to replace the steel tailgate plate with aluminum some day to save the weight.

 

[mrblaine]

My MORyde plates were 1/4" thick, so I had a small thickness mis-match when I installed the 3/16" thick Genright corners:

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I debated in my head whether necessary or not, and in the end, I made hinge spacers for the body-side hinges out of 14 gauge aluminum sheet:

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I suspect that 1/16" is not enough to matter, but it was easy to fab those spacers, so I did it.

It's interesting that some of the MORyde kits used 3/16" and some used 1/4" material. I'd rather have saved some weight on the tailgate and had the 3/16" version. I have so many things on my to-do list for this LJ that I'll likely never get to it, but I'd like to replace the steel tailgate plate with aluminum some day to save the weight.

There were some design revisions that I don't see a lot of folks discuss. They may be out there, I just haven't seen them. The first tub side plate was too thin to do much. That got beefed up at some point. The offset mount for the stock tire carrier to bolt to at the top really got beefed up. The early ones cracked a fair bit even with the snubbers correct. The gate side appears to have changed to heavier material as well.

As to whether it matters to have everything in the same plane across the back, I suspect it is just aesthetics and a slight difference in how much the weatherstrip gets compressed. At the end of the day, this entire mess is a horrible way to do things. We are fully dependent upon how much we compress the weatherstrip around the gate to control a lot of weight that wants to move around. Add in a less than stellar side to side fixation of the gate opening and we are lucky we can get anything to work.