Tailgate latch bar

[custom76]

I am starting this reassembly and want to rewrap the latch bars. I found one older post where a 3/4" heater hose mesh wrap was used ( not sure what that is). Any other ideas?

[Tatsadasayago]

The wrap is there to prevent the latch bar from binding with the window lift arms, so the thinner the material the better. The heater hose mesh is usually a nylon webbing with diamond-shaped mesh, used to be very popular with the hot rod crowd. If you can find it, that would be a good choice.

If your latch arms are straight, side channel felts are in good condition and the window lift bar is tight to the glass, you really don't need to wrap the arms.
A friend used a long length of heat shrink tubing (He was a Telco Lineman) and it worked very well...but a bit of overkill.

The heavy black tape used to wrap underground black iron gas pipe would work well as long as the ends are secured so it can't unwrap over time.

[custom76]

I thought the wrap was to prevent the bars from rattling against the glass. Is that ever an issue? Seems like I read a post like that once, but I think they also said their channel felts were nearly gone.

From what you are saying I might lean toward not even pulling the latch assembly because it is in perfect operable condition. It is the only parts left on the tailgate. I went to great lengths to salvage it to use the original paint, even had sections cut out of another and welded in, mostly under the wide mouldings. I'm going for the "patina" look, but if it doesn't come off the way I'm hoping I'll paint it. So far I'm having great success blending in color matched enamels from a local automotive paint company that puts it in spray cans, the truck is original paint never wrecked Desert Tan.

[Tatsadasayago]

When the rear glass is fully up, the latch bars are below the lift channel bar. Where those wraps come into play is when the glass is about 4-5" from the full-up position when the two can come into contact. It took me quite some time to figure out what was going on with that before I fully rebuilt mine. Kinda sad since I used to be an AMC/Jeep/Eagle tech until 1990.

[custom76]

But you did figure it out! Thanks for the info.