[ihc] Liftgate, window questions

[David Bongo <dbongo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had a fun time on my mail route yesterday with my Scout.  The right 
hinge on the liftgate broke off when I was opening it to remove a parcel 
for a customer.  The hing itself was (and is) fine - it was the rust on 
the liftgate itself that caused the piece to rip out, so I had a hole in 
the liftgate.  (By "Liftgate" I mean the top half of the back of the 
truck - i.e. the piece on traveltop.)

I didn't have time to bring the truck down to a body shop and get the 
work done right, so I jury-rigged a solution - I used JB Weld (and duct 
tape) to reconnect everything.  Surprisingly, it worked just fine today.

I'm going to get this fixed right, but I wanted some advice on the right 
way.  Should I have the body shop just fix it, or would it be worth it 
to look for a fiberglass replacement?  Rust would never be an issue, and 
I'm GUESSING that a Traveller liftgate would be fiberglass (like the 
rest of its Traveltop) and a bolt-in replacement.  The "arms" that hold 
the gate in the "up" position are also acting up just a bit.  So the 
replacement also holds the potential benefit of upgrading those.  Any 
ideas/preferences?

And my window is acting up.  I've got to roll my window up and down a 
few times a day, and I've noticed an occassional hesitancy for it to 
move.  Upon further inspection, the crank mechanism is a bit "sloppy" 
and when I use one hand to keep it steady, everything moves just fine. 
Any ideas on how to correct this?

Thanks,

Dave