Genuine GORILLA-LIFT 2-Sided Trailer Tailgate Lift Assist

I unfortunately installed it more than the specified 18. My fault. Had it welded at 18 and wouldnt keep the trailer if I had to keep manually lifting the tailgate. Im a 78 year old woman and this add on is a miracle for me.

I have a tilt-gate trailer like the one they picture except it has 2-7/16 OD round tubular top rails, not flat rails. The yellow spring housings come in two pieces to allow a shorter shipping box. You butt them up and then bolt them down, two bolts for each piece of tubing. However, theres nothing to align the two yellow tubes together. Thus flat-bottomed square tubes are precariously sitting on top of round tubular rails. You are instructed to drill oversized holes through the mounting rails. This allows you to reposition the square tubes before tightening them down, but also allows the two tubes to move slightly as they absorb eventual road vibrations. The yellow spring housing tubes can become misaligned after a while. If that happens, the long garage-style springs inside the housing hang up on the misaligned tube edges in the middle and boing as they slip off. They should have welded ears onto the tubes that force the tubes to stay aligned or be hinged so that they are mechanically aligned after installation. Also, be aware that the threaded bolts are all metric. The carriage bolts look like theyre 5/16-18 thread, and say so in the instructions, but they are not. The gate-mounting bolts look like they are 1/2-13, but they are not. The carriage bolts supplied are not long enough to go through my 2-7/16 tubular top rails. I had to purchase eight new galvanized carriage bolts (didnt want them to rust). Thats when I discovered the threads were not SAE. The supplied nuts did not fit properly. One of the great features of this type of trailer is that you can fold the gate forward onto the bed to get it out of the wind for significantly less drag and better mileage. If you employ their permanently-attached cable system and its 6 long metric 1/2 bolts, you can never fold the gate inward -- the bolts make the gate too wide to fit inward. If you look at the pictures, youll see that I rigged up a different system using shorter, custom-cut 1/2-13 threaded rod with locknuts, washers and a hitch pin. This allows me easily to remove the cables and still fold the gate inward on return highway trips when empty or lightly loaded. I now have the best of both worlds: an easy-lifting gate and an inwardly foldable gate. Finally, a word on the springs. Since they have no idea how heavy or large your ramp-gate is, they supply two coaxial springs that are really strong. Two springs, one inside the other for each side, comprise the default setup. This means you have five spring combinations to choose from. 1. Both inner and outer springs on both sides, if your gate is really heavy. 2. Both outer springs (no inner springs) on both sides, if the gate is heavy. 3. One outer spring on one side, both inner/outer springs on the other side if the gate is a bit less heavy. 4. One inner spring on one side, one outer spring on the other side. 5. One inner spring on both sides. You test the gate using various combinations and S hooks until youre happy with the balance. The problem is that to get the springs apart so you can use only the inner spring, you have to cut the outer springs loop and pull the larger outer spring off the pair. This renders the spring almost unusable if you change your mind. Its a bit confusing in print. Weigh your combinations carefully before cutting. Out of the box and per side, you can attach the cable to 1) both springs or 2) the outer, larger spring. You cant attach to the just the smaller, inner spring by itself. Because my gate is fairly light, the combination I needed was a single inner spring on one side and one outer spring on the other side. I cut the large outer spring off with an angle grinder. Youd need a very large bolt cutter, or maybe a hacksaw, to cut the spring. But spring steel is very tough. Dont know if a hacksaw would make it. Anyway, now that the gate is balanced fairly well, its simply a matter of picking it up with my toe and it rises easily into position to be locked off. Very handy indeed.

I was having a really hard time lifting my gate. Now I can lift it with one finger. My wife can even lift it. Perfect for a senior citizen like me.

I am getting older now and the ramp on my trailer is really getting heavy for me to lift off the ground and with these on I can lift it with one finger --- literally !! These were difficult to install on my trailer because my side rails are made out of pipe, but , if your trailer is made from angle iron it wont take you 45 minutes to install these. Great product

Very easy to install and use. Im 66 so it was getting pretty hard for me to raise and lower my trailers talegate. After I installed it I can let it down or rise it up with just my finger !

I have a 5 x 10 single axle Trailer with a 40 tall tailgate with an expanded metal surface. The Gorilla Lift installed in a single afternoon (approx 2-hours). Each side comes as a double spring (small inner/ large outer) and cable assembly with roller guides at the cable end. Assembly of the 2 rail halfs for each side is easy; it only requires drilling 2 holes in the trailer per rectangular tube (thats 4 holes per side). The instructions could have been much clearer about how to measure the trailer tailgate for drilling the cable attachment point by using a diagram, but it didnt have one. The instructions do suggest testing the tailgate attachment point using the expanded metal tailgate deck as holes. Instead, I used a C-clamp attached to the side of my tailgate with the cable slotted thru the C-clamp and kept adjusting the clamp up or down until i got the tailgate to float neutral when opening or closing. After finding the right point, i drilled the tailgate side-rail and attached the cable stay-bolt at that point. All-in-all, for my size trailer and tailgate this product has performed as I wanted it to. My 65 Y.O. mother with Parkisons disease is easily able to lift (open and close) the tailgate now that it has the lift-assist attached. I am very pleased with the product.

Gorilla lift was easy to install and works great very easy on the back after a long day at work would recommend to everyone

Very good and works

Instructions seem to be very intimidating to look at and read. I went to the Trusty YouTube and I found all kind of videos on installing the Gorilla lift there. The time I wasted trying to read them is all it took to install it on my Trailer. I bought a 2019 Carry on and when it comes to drilling the holes go ahead and save yourself a trip back and buy the Good Drill Bits to begin with. My tail gate weighs right at 75 lbs and stands 4 feet tall and is 5 feet 5 inches wide. I have a bad back and thought I was going to have to sell my new trailer before I got started. After a lil research I found the Gorilla Lift and I thought there was no way it works like the video. Got it on and the tail gate would not stay down. I had to unhook 1 spring on both sides to get my gate to stay down. Sure enough I can use 1 finger to lower it or lift it. I am good to go and I get to keep my trailer now. Mine is installed on a 3 inch round tube and not on a flat surface. I had to buy 8 - 3 1/2 inch bolts to replace the 2 1/2 inch ones that came with it. That was a dislike but it was made to work so I am happy on that The front part of the lift has a 2 inch square where the springs hold to and it looked a lil sloppy so I bought the 2 inch squares off of Amazon and slipped them right on. Looks good and it is in Great shape for my hauling needs. I could have used one of them to do the job at hand but I was concerned about my Tail Gate Twisting by doing so... Highly Recommend is a Back Saver and it adds value to your Trailer

Best purchase Ive ever made for my husband, he can lift the double gate with just two fingers. Most every time he takes brush to the recycle he gets comments on it, once someone tries it, they want one. :-)