Ok that worked but I snapped the back door key connector and a couple of the tailgate card's snaps off. 17 years in the TX heat makes all that plastic brittle. Guess I'll need to order that anti rattle kit to get the tailgate card back on. Thanks bskeels for your reply!! $30 and some sweating in ...

That's a much better price so I'll go ahead and order it. It's a daily driver so don't really want to pull out the mechanism without the replacement in hand.

So another rear tailgate latch not working. Read a bunch of posts but was trying not to get a new assembly unnecessarily. It wasn't an intermittent problem it just suddenly stopped working. The rear hatch dash light has been on for weeks.

I've taken the door card off and the lock is working from ...