Tailgate relocator

[bigblue727]

What is the easiest/best/cheapest way yall have found to do a tailgate relocator? Also can you just shave your door handles and add it as another door popper? Planning on doing both and don't know much about either.

[wombie]

Cheapest way to do it is to just cut it out and fab a mount and patch panel. Sir michaels makes a relocater kit. The expensive part of course is welding in the patch panel prep and repaint. You can add a door popper but to be honest I'm not sure how this is done...

[xxumattuxx]

im about to do the same im not gonna get poppers on my doors but i am going to go with the sir michaels relocater kit i know it comes with all the necsarry fliping parts and you use your stock handle. what i dont know is, does it come with a filler plate i dont know. but the handle needs to be take off the whole filled and a new whole cut in the back. i once heard of somebody putting some sort of soilnoid(sp?) inside the tailgate that opened the tailgate and he had a chain that caught it half way down befor the tailgate dropped i dont really see that as an improvment but maybe you can find something better i wish my tonneau would unlock when i unlock my doors

[wombie]

It does come with the filler panel...at least it did when I was looking.

[04_on_22s]

the sir michaels kit does come with a filler panel. If your not too sure about your welding skills...DONT DO IT! Leave it to a professional body guy...you can VERY easly warp the tailgate skin. As far as shaving the door handles and adding doorpops..its very tricky. These Dodge Doors dont lend themselves to run wires easily into the doors and then you have drill this huge 3/4 inch hole in the lower door sill to mount a spring popper. I think they look pretty ugly, even if you get the billet or chrome ones. If your gonna shave the doors, you'll also have to remove the doorlocks...you dont want anyone to accidently lock the doors and then shut the doors locked...the only way in would be to break the window glass.

[cisco22sno20s]

I think that even if you lock the door locks, with shaved doors, you can still open the doors. At least the front doors you can, I don't know if the rear doors can though.(good question to my self!!!) but remember that even with the doors locked you can still open the door just by pulling the door handle from inside.

[04_on_22s]

the problem wouldn't be locking yourself in, it would be locking yourself out. I have seen many guys having to break there windows to get into there trucks because they failed to remove the doorlocks completely. Even if these guys had a manual release button hidden under the front bumper or in the gas cap, they still could not get in because the doorlock was hindering the solenoid from pulling the claw. The rear doors, from factory, will not open with the inside handle being pulled from the inside. You have to first pull up the lock and then you can open the door. A problem with doing pop doors in a QC is that not very many alarms have enough channels to operate each door individually. You dont want to come to your truck, pop all the doors and then have to go and shut the other 3 before getting in. Viper alarms are one of the very few where you can expand the channels so that you can either open your door, your passenger door, rear doors..all at once or seperatly. You can even add linear actuators to your tonneau cover to raise up and down from your remote

[beandip77]

I think that a good alternative to shaving your door handles would be to have some flush mounted door handles molded in. Slammed1 has a 72 chevy that he had some neon, prowler door handles molded in and they look sweet. Even the new vette door handles would look awesome. Not a big fan of the shaved handles. They look good, but with solenoids failing and what not, count me out. I mean, you're gonna have to have the whole filled in anyway, just thrown in some cool handles. Just my .02.

[blackramon22s]

the problem wouldn't be locking yourself in, it would be locking yourself out. I have seen many guys having to break there windows to get into there trucks because they failed to remove the doorlocks completely. Even if these guys had a manual release button hidden under the front bumper or in the gas cap, they still could not get in because the doorlock was hindering the solenoid from pulling the claw. The rear doors, from factory, will not open with the inside handle being pulled from the inside. You have to first pull up the lock and then you can open the door. A problem with doing pop doors in a QC is that not very many alarms have enough channels to operate each door individually. You dont want to come to your truck, pop all the doors and then have to go and shut the other 3 before getting in. Viper alarms are one of the very few where you can expand the channels so that you can either open your door, your passenger door, rear doors..all at once or seperatly. You can even add linear actuators to your tonneau cover to raise up and down from your remote



when they installed mine,the place that did them said the same thing so what they did was install both back up switches to the handle on the inside,you know the one that you pull to get out.that way when the backup switch pulls on your handle the door automaticly unlocks and opens.

[TxRam]

i once heard of somebody putting some sort of soilnoid(sp?) inside the tailgate that opened the tailgate and he had a chain that caught it half way down befor the tailgate dropped i dont really see that as an improvment but maybe you can find something better i wish my tonneau would unlock when i unlock my doors

A better way would be to put the tailgate on some type of actuator. Electric would be best. Then you could simply lower or raise it when needed automatically. This has been done quite a bit in trucks used in stereo contests. Try a local stereo shop to see if they have an idea.

[blackramon22s]

im about to do the same im not gonna get poppers on my doors but i am going to go with the sir michaels relocater kit i know it comes with all the necsarry fliping parts and you use your stock handle. what i dont know is, does it come with a filler plate i dont know. but the handle needs to be take off the whole filled and a new whole cut in the back. i once heard of somebody putting some sort of soilnoid(sp?) inside the tailgate that opened the tailgate and he had a chain that caught it half way down befor the tailgate dropped i dont really see that as an improvment but maybe you can find something better i wish my tonneau would unlock when i unlock my doors


I dont think that the relocator kit uses you stock handle,because when I had mine relocated the body shop guy said that he would rather blend it in himself as opposed to using the relocator kit because it uses a huge inspection cover and by blending it in himself it would look stock.and it does it looks like it came like that from the factory if you guys want pics let me know.

[bigblue727]

thank-you everyone for your help

[xxumattuxx]

I dont think that the relocator kit uses you stock handle,because when I had mine relocated the body shop guy said that he would rather blend it in himself as opposed to using the relocator kit because it uses a huge inspection cover and by blending it in himself it would look stock.and it does it looks like it came like that from the factory if you guys want pics let me know.

i think it does i was looking at your pictures in your gallery and it looks like the orginal handle on your bed rug i wanted the same thing.
http://www.dodgetalk.com/gallery/data/500/10699TRUCK_PICS_044-med.jpg

[dodge tomahawk]

The original outside handle is re-used on the inside with the sir michaels kit.It mounts to the plate they give you with the kit.... also for the outside they give a filler piece.

[RamLion]

i gots pics in my gallery relocated tailgate handle as for the electric poppers on the doors, had them on another truck and the tension used to pop the door was heavy the latch wouldnt release, unless u pushed in on the door and loosened the tension that from four different stereo shop here in waco nobody new what the hell they where doin got screwed, but there are other guys that did it on this forum that did a pretty pimp job on the door pop assembly, oh by the way i shouldnt cost more that 300 hundred from the dodge dealer to install a relocate kit on ur taligate, i paid out the kaboose for my mine the found out it was cheaper to get it done at the dealership

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Hey RamLion, when is the baby due? I see you missed a lot of periods. Bwahahahaha

Good tip BTW to get a price from the dealer for work. You never know who will be cheapest.

[layd97dime]

sir michaels kit works great but if you cnat do body work to weld the hole shut its gonna be pricey