My Tailgate won't stay shut

JimG · March 17, 2003

Hi everyone. This is a really annoying problem that developed over the past couple days. Spent my spring break putting nerf bars and a tonneau cover (Pace Edwards) on my truck. Also added a power tailgate lock to secure the tailgate when the tonneau cover is rolled back. It's wired to the door locks so one press of the remote unlocks everything (yeah, two barrel bolts would be cheaper, but this is cool) So here's the problem:

My tailgate won't stay shut and locked. Pulled like all heck on the tailgate today before driving back to school. Actually made the truck rock back and forth with the force I applied. There's nothing in the bed that hit the gate either. But 30 minutes into the drive, it falls down. Then, it won't lock when I attempt to close it.

Not sure what I broke or what I did wrong. Any advice or ideas is welcomed. Thanks in advance.

chevy4x4trucks · March 17, 2003

does your truck auto-lock the doors when you hit a certain MPH? Maybe when it does that it's unlocking the tailgate for some reason. That's about the best reason I can think of.

gmcjoe · March 17, 2003

I'm not sure if it is related to the autolock or not.

My 2000 had that problem last fall. I took the bezel off and lubed up the latch assembly. That seems to have fixed mine.

It was annoying taking off and having that thing slam open like that

BlueRado · March 17, 2003

I'm not sure if it is related to the autolock or not.
My 2000 had that problem last fall. I took the bezel off and lubed up the latch assembly. That seems to have fixed mine.

It was annoying taking off and having that thing slam open like that

That's exactly what was wrong w/ my '99 gate also. Now I've added that to the list of maintenance functions.

points · March 17, 2003

I had the same thing happen to my gate also. I sprayed alot of WD-40 inside and that worked. It happen in the middle of winter so i'm guessing it was ice.

JimG · March 18, 2003

Yes, it does have that auto-locking device where you hit a certain speed and the doors lock. But that triggers the lock side of the circuit, and I know I wired it right. See, other annoying part, if you put the truck in park, it'll unlock the doors, so this is hard to test. Can't have someone sit there and try it as I drive because I live in Jersey so you can't have someone in the pickup bed unless you want a ticket.

Lubricating the assembly sounds like something I should try. But I just bought the truck 2 1/2 months ago. Granted it's been a bad winter, but this only started right after I installed the lock.

Checked the clearance on my tonneau cover, and that's not a problem.

THE BIGPUNN · March 19, 2003

im sure it just needs some lube. stop by your dealer and they'll fix you up in less than 5 minutes.

JimG · March 19, 2003

Nah, can't do that. I'm at school, dealer's about 1 hour from here. I have a can of lube in the truck somewhere. Have to go fix a DSL installation this morning, so I'm going to spray it all down and then road test it. Drove around for a little bit last night, the gate stayed up. Seems to only try and drop on an incline.

JimG · March 20, 2003

Ok, well, after driving about 40 miles total yesterday, I couldn't get the gate to drop on me. However, I was so paranoid about it I moved everything into the ext. cab just in case. Lubed both locks real good. Seems to be working. If I go out to my grandparents this weekend I'll get a real good test on hills and steep grades.

Thanks for the help.