Tailgate not opening

[Jeepman56]

So I have come across my only my second problem with the KJ in 2.5 years. The tailgate won't open. The glass pops up at the half way pull on the rear handle but the gate won't open. It seems as though the lock won't release and is preventing it from even budging. I have tried many combinations of things to fix it as far as unlocking the doors while running the Jeep, from the key fob, etc and the glass will pop just as it is supposed to but no luck on the door. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[kb0nly]

Someone else had this problem a while back on here, if i remember right he had to replace the latch assembly inside the door. The bad thing is you need to drop the back seats down and crawl in and take apart the door to get it open now.

 

[JeepJeepster]

There is a little door on the back of the tailgate that you can pop off so you can see whats going on in there. Gotta crawl up from the inside like kbonly said..

 

[Jeepman56]

Ah, thanks, I will poke around in there and see if the problem is obvious or if I need the assembly. Thanks for the quick responses.

 

[kb0nly]

Yeah thank god Jeep put that access panel on there!!

I can tell you one horror story involving a frozen rear door latch on a Dodge Caravan, you can't pull off the interior trim panel with the door closed because it overlaps with the weather seal and has screws that are not accessible when closed. After three days of helping the owner fight it we took apart another similar van which would open, determined where we needed access to the latch rods and then took a large hole saw and put a hole in the interior trim panel on his van to get a long needle nose pliers in to release the door latch.

I just bought a big rubber hole plug to fill it in afterwards. It didn't look that bad but still.

 

[valvestem]

So I have come across my only my second problem with the KJ in 2.5 years. The tailgate won't open. The glass pops up at the half way pull on the rear handle but the gate won't open. It seems as though the lock won't release and is preventing it from even budging. I have tried many combinations of things to fix it as far as unlocking the doors while running the Jeep, from the key fob, etc and the glass will pop just as it is supposed to but no luck on the door. Anyone have any ideas?

I thought there was a "lockout" mechanism to keep the swing gate from being opened while the Jeep ignition is on-running?

 

[kb0nly]

I thought there was a "lockout" mechanism to keep the swing gate from being opened while the Jeep ignition is on-running?

Hmm, i can on mine so i don't know about that.

If i have it in gear however you can't open it.