Shorebreak
Well-Known Member
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- #1
Did you know that there's a torsion bar (don't know if I'm calling it by the right name) under the inside flap of the tailgate/lower part of the split tailgate (not the liftgate)?
I didn't know there was such a thing under there. I just thought the bottom part of the tailgate flopped open heavily. This thing slightly softens the opening and closing of the flip down part of the tailgate.
I found this out when mobile service came to me today to fix my tailgate not opening when parked on a decline.
We went through hours of moving the latch, loosening and shifting bolts all around the assembly... fixing one issue, then creating another - e.g. it wouldn't close at one point, then the latch wasn't operating, and when the gaps looked better cosmetically we were back to square one............
During the course of all of this, the tech saw that this torsion bar thing wasn't hooked in correctly, so he tried to fix that, too. You'll notice in the pics that he scratched some things up and chewed up the latex covering on the bar. All internal, so not a big deal to me. I'm going treat the scratches to make sure that it's not affected by moisture, but I'm not worried about it.
He tried a few times and couldn't get the bar to stay in place. After fixing the tailgate not opening on a decline issue, he said I'd have to put in a ticket for the torsion bar.
I thought I could figure out the problem by thinking through where it was rubbing and about how leverage works... If you have the same issue, here's how I fixed it:
1. Tapped the "latch" assembly where it ever so slightly is more "closed"
2. Tapped the hook part of the latch down slightly - steps 1 and 2 are just to make a more extreme hook than how it was
3. Put the bar into the hook - this takes a little bit of effort, but you can do it by holding the tailgate almost closed and using something like a tool handle to pry the bar into the hook
4. Tap down the tip the bar now that it's in place, again, meant to make more of an extreme clasp between the hook and the bar
5. Push the length of the bar away from the tailgate and toward the body of the car as much as you can
Don't know if this is a common problem... Maybe most people with this issue don't even know about it and just think the bottom part of the tailgate just flops open. (It still flops open, but you can tell that it's softer/"lighter" than before.)
You can see how the bar isn't engaged in the latch/hook above.
Now you can see how it's supposed to sit in the latch.
Closer view of the bar not properly in place.
Closer view of bar in the latch.
Please excuse the scratches and chewed up covering on the bar - that was all the tech's work. I did my actual fix of the problem without making any marks.
The trick isn't really getting the bar in place if you have this problem, it's about keeping the bar from slipping out again. After some pretty heavy testing, it looks like it's holding in place after I did all the pulling and pushing on the bar and latch.
I didn't know there was such a thing under there. I just thought the bottom part of the tailgate flopped open heavily. This thing slightly softens the opening and closing of the flip down part of the tailgate.
I found this out when mobile service came to me today to fix my tailgate not opening when parked on a decline.
We went through hours of moving the latch, loosening and shifting bolts all around the assembly... fixing one issue, then creating another - e.g. it wouldn't close at one point, then the latch wasn't operating, and when the gaps looked better cosmetically we were back to square one............
During the course of all of this, the tech saw that this torsion bar thing wasn't hooked in correctly, so he tried to fix that, too. You'll notice in the pics that he scratched some things up and chewed up the latex covering on the bar. All internal, so not a big deal to me. I'm going treat the scratches to make sure that it's not affected by moisture, but I'm not worried about it.
He tried a few times and couldn't get the bar to stay in place. After fixing the tailgate not opening on a decline issue, he said I'd have to put in a ticket for the torsion bar.
I thought I could figure out the problem by thinking through where it was rubbing and about how leverage works... If you have the same issue, here's how I fixed it:
1. Tapped the "latch" assembly where it ever so slightly is more "closed"
2. Tapped the hook part of the latch down slightly - steps 1 and 2 are just to make a more extreme hook than how it was
3. Put the bar into the hook - this takes a little bit of effort, but you can do it by holding the tailgate almost closed and using something like a tool handle to pry the bar into the hook
4. Tap down the tip the bar now that it's in place, again, meant to make more of an extreme clasp between the hook and the bar
5. Push the length of the bar away from the tailgate and toward the body of the car as much as you can
Don't know if this is a common problem... Maybe most people with this issue don't even know about it and just think the bottom part of the tailgate just flops open. (It still flops open, but you can tell that it's softer/"lighter" than before.)
You can see how the bar isn't engaged in the latch/hook above.
Now you can see how it's supposed to sit in the latch.
Closer view of the bar not properly in place.
Closer view of bar in the latch.
Please excuse the scratches and chewed up covering on the bar - that was all the tech's work. I did my actual fix of the problem without making any marks.
The trick isn't really getting the bar in place if you have this problem, it's about keeping the bar from slipping out again. After some pretty heavy testing, it looks like it's holding in place after I did all the pulling and pushing on the bar and latch.
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