Tailgate cable bolt ripped out

Hey kind of put myself in this peculiar situation. I haul dirt bikes every weekend and I guess the bolts holding my tailgate cable ripped out of the side. It’s about to happen on the other side too so I’m not sure what I’ll do but I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem and what they did to fix it?

 

Might have to rig a little reinforcement plate and reattach the little latch... haven't seen this issue anywhere else

 

Well, id take off the taillights and find a way to attach a 1/4 inch thick steel angle or channel stock to the existing latch strike and other fasteners behind the weak OEM stamped sheet metal, attach another piece of stock outside, and run down some nuts to see if that corrects the deformation. Then remove the outer stock and make any modifications to accept the OEM hardware.

 

Both great ideas, I was thinking of putting some type of plate behind the light to spread out the surface area almost like a giant washer, maybe on Both sides of there is enough space.