Hello all, I just picked up a used 1996 F150. The tailgate is stuck and I canot unlatch the damb thing. I took off the access panel on the tailgate and noticed that the handle and the rods are all broken. One side is latched but the other is not. How can I unlatch the tailgate when the rods are broken. I tried taking a screw driver and try to pry the latch through the 3/4 inch gap between the bed and the tailgate.

Please help as I want to get this truck on the road ASAP.

Sincerely
T FIsher
Ontario Canada

 

I've never looked inside so I'm only guessing, but could you use a pair of vicegrips to grab the end of the rod and pull it, to release one latch at a time? There may be enough give in the gate to allow this, otherwise you might need two people to pull both at once.

My other thought is, if you can get to the end of the rod clearly enough, you might be able to put an electrical terminal joiner on it and use the grubscrew to grip the rod, the connector might give you more to grip or maybe even temporarily join the rod back together? The type of terminal strip I'm talking about is a brass insert inside a plastic body that covers and separates the insert and insulates the grubscrews. If you cut away the plastic from one of these, you're left with a hollow brass tube with two grubscrews in the side. I've used them to join material together before, if you filed a flat notch into the rod and did the screw up tight, it would grip pretty well. Smear some JB weld over the thing and it'd be quite permanent.

 

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