Tail gate cables

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sewlow

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I swapped out those cables for the metal straps on my '98 years ago.
Helping a friend of a friend move.
One of the 'Strong like bull. Smart like tractor' 20-something-year-olds grabbed the handle & just let the tailgate drop. Both cables let go at once.
Then...he walked up on the tailgate to get in the box. (!!!)
The formerly near-perfect tailgate now had 2 big creases across the width from where it was sitting on the bumper.
Dropping it was bad enough. Walking on it afterward? Stupidly ignorant! The kid didn't have a clue. "I thought that that was the way it was supposed to be."
Threw everything out of the back of my truck & left.
Went & bought a nice tailgate, in the same color, & presented the bill to the kid. Took 3 months & contributions from the person moving, the guy that conned me into helping, along with the kid & his parents chipping in, to get paid.

Anyways...
IIRC, when I replaced the cables for the straps, the only difference between the 2 were the mounts on the tailgate. They're specific between the two styles. No modifications to the box or the tailgate. It was a direct swap.

One of the first things I did when I bought my '97 was to ditch those cables.
 

454cid

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I don't know what GM's wisdom was for installing cables or straps. My 88 has cables.

Have you owned it since it was new? If not, my guess is that they were replaced for some reason, and the cables were what was available at that time.
 

east302

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Only the metal straps were used in 88-89. Here’s the 88-89 parts catalog along with pics of my 88. I believe there’s also a difference in tailgate mounting holes for brackets vs cables, but I can’t confirm that.

Where did you get a paper version of the parts catalog?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

PlayingWithTBI

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Have you owned it since it was new? If not, my guess is that they were replaced for some reason, and the cables were what was available at that time.
No, I haven't, I've only had it for 19 years (bought it in 2002). The PO told me about what he did to it but, never mentioned a cable swap. Are there different guides or bumpers too? Now I'm curious, ha ha.
 

1997

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My '89 has the steel straps. So, likely only '88-89 had them, but GM, so there are probably some '89s with cables and some '90s with straps depending on what they found cleaning out a closet and threw on the assembly line.

Agreed, my dads 1990 had straps.
GM’s marketing team said it was to stop the rattling tailgate issue.
 
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