Tailgate hinge excessive wear!!

[SRath]

I finished my conversion to factory power windows and door locks this weekend. I took the opportunity to also wire my Boss electric tailgate lock to the door locks and mount the mechanism in my tailgate.

It is the first time in 8 years that I have had my tailgate off.

I was shocked to see how badly worn the the half-round bed pivots and the round tailgate sockets are! They are really bad! Practically worn through on the tops! I always cussed that rattlin' tailgate; now I know why. I wasted all of my grease on the latch mechanism instead of the pivot... After all, the tailgate doesn't really see a whole lot of action compared to the doors. Why should the hinges wear out?

It isn't opening and closing the tailgate that wears these items; they obviously do their wearing while the tailgate is closed and just shaking/vibrating while going down the road.

I'm going to have to do some tedious welding, sanding, and shaping to the bed posts and maybe the same or just replace the tailgate sockets. I would like to cure this problem permanently and I don't think just occassional grease is sufficient.

It really needs some type of bushing in there (replaceable, preferably). Has anyone else "been there; cured that" already, and, if so, how?