Problem with liftgate glass.

[HUA99XLT]

now this is starting to drive me nuts! when my button (lock) stopped working, the little c clip at the end fell off, but that is not your problem. the rod that you have a picture above, dose it have a lot of play in it, or dose it move freely with everything else?

No, the rod in that picture seems to move like it is supposed to. It doesn't have a lot of play in it.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

i dont know. i'm now out of idea's. the only thing i can now think of is to take it apart and white grease the crap out of everything, and that even isn't a guaranty.

 

[HUA99XLT]

Well, I am almost ashamed to say it, but I've thrown in the towel. I know when to admit defeat. I have tried everything that was posted on this thread by others as well as some of my own ideas and nothing has corrected the problem thus far. Yesterday, I took my Explorer to the local Ford dealer to (finally) get the 3 recalls taken care of that I got notices about when I first bought the truck. Which was about 2.5 years ago haha. Well, while I was there I asked them to take a look at the liftgate glass issue and they came to the conclusion that some part of the lock assembly is broken. And of course no one sells just that piece of the lock assembly so it will cost approx $150 for a whole new assembly. I was hoping to fix this on my own but at this point I don't care anymore, I just want it fixed. Going back in on Monday to have it replaced.

As least I'm more mechanically inclined than some people. While I was in the waiting room of the dealer yesterday there was a guy sitting next to me that had brought his car in because is was running "weird." After a few minutes a mechanic brought out his air filter and it was in dire need of changing. I don't mean it was just a little dirty, the filter was completely BLACK. I thought to myself, "well, at least I know how to change an f'n air filter." :

 

[HUA99XLT]

Well, finally got the problem resolved today. The whole lock assembly was replaced at Day Ford here in town. Ended up costing me around $300 with parts and labor. Not happy about the amount of money it took me to fix this but at this point I'm just happy it's fixed. Also, somehow my rear window wiper is working now. Hasn't worked in about a year. I'm guessing that some part or accessory to the lock assembly that had to be replaced was what was causing the wiper not to work? I dunno. As previously stated, just happy they work.

 

[Willard]

I believe there is a switch that doesn't allow the wiper to move when the glass isn't properly latched. That would probably have something to do with your wiper problem.

 

[DrummerGeek]

For anyone else, I wrestled with this problem over the weekend.

Found out that the bracket that held on my lock cylinder was cracked causing the lock to not fully change (in my case, I couldn't unlock the back glass). There is little slide at the front of the lock that pushes down on the latch rod. It rotates between two reliefs in the cylinder. One does nothing, the other allows it to unlatch the window.

Now, since the bracket was snapped at the top, the lock hung at a slight angle causing the button to get stuck and the slide to not rotate completely. I plan to eventually repair this properly, but since it involves completely disassembling the back door latch assembly to get to the two bolts that hold it on, I have decided to hold off. The way I fixed it for now was with zip ties. There is a small hole (about 3/8" to 1/2" in diameter) above the lock that does not appear to have any purpose. I looped the zip tie through that hole and around the pin coming out of the back of the cylinder and tightened it as much as I could by hand. Now my back glass locks and unlocks properly and my button doesn't get stuck (as often). Next time I take the door apart, I will try to remember to get pictures.