Car-Dog
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- July 23, 2008
- Messages
- 147
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Fresno, California
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1998 Ford Ranger 4X4
Well one of my tailgate latches broke so I decided to go ahead and replace both of them. I noticed that several people have had ?s about the process so I took a couple of pics. It is really Pretty simple and should only take about 30 mins for both sides.
All you really need is: Torx bits I believe the big one was a t45 and the small one was like a t35 and a sharpie
And of course new latches:
The first step is to remove the tailgate piece of the bed liner (If you have one) this is what the smaller torx bit is for there should be 6 screws unless your missing a few like I was:
Once the liner is off this metal plate should be uncovered and loose:
Once the metal plate is off you should be able to see inside of the tailgate like this:
The next step is to disconnect the limit cable(or whatever you want to this thing) all you have to do is take the weight of off the tailgate pull up on the little tab and slide the hole forward:
If you only do one side at a time the other cable is plenty strong enough to hold up the tailgate while you work on it
next you want to loosen the rods that go to the handle, all you have to do is flip the yellow latch open and pop the rod out, this where I used the sharpie. I made a match mark on the yellow clip and the rod so I knew exactly where to snap it back in:
Next take the t45 torx ( at least I think it was a 45) and remove the two screws that hold the latch on:
You should now be able to slide the latch out of the tailgate and take it off of the rod like this:
Those little lock washers can be a pain to get off I just put the old latch in a vice and pounded the bolts out of the old latch, miraculously the lock washers were undamaged and i was able to reuse them. the reassembled latch should look like this ( this is the one for the drivers side):
to put it all back together read the directions upside down
Sorry some of the pics are so fuzzy I took all of them with my cell phone
Hope this helps someone
All you really need is: Torx bits I believe the big one was a t45 and the small one was like a t35 and a sharpie
And of course new latches:
The first step is to remove the tailgate piece of the bed liner (If you have one) this is what the smaller torx bit is for there should be 6 screws unless your missing a few like I was:
Once the liner is off this metal plate should be uncovered and loose:
Once the metal plate is off you should be able to see inside of the tailgate like this:
The next step is to disconnect the limit cable(or whatever you want to this thing) all you have to do is take the weight of off the tailgate pull up on the little tab and slide the hole forward:
If you only do one side at a time the other cable is plenty strong enough to hold up the tailgate while you work on it
next you want to loosen the rods that go to the handle, all you have to do is flip the yellow latch open and pop the rod out, this where I used the sharpie. I made a match mark on the yellow clip and the rod so I knew exactly where to snap it back in:
Next take the t45 torx ( at least I think it was a 45) and remove the two screws that hold the latch on:
You should now be able to slide the latch out of the tailgate and take it off of the rod like this:
Those little lock washers can be a pain to get off I just put the old latch in a vice and pounded the bolts out of the old latch, miraculously the lock washers were undamaged and i was able to reuse them. the reassembled latch should look like this ( this is the one for the drivers side):
to put it all back together read the directions upside down
Sorry some of the pics are so fuzzy I took all of them with my cell phone
Hope this helps someone