Rear Tailgate Latch

[ralph]

I just had to repair my latch on my 06 with 60,000miles. Unfortunately, both were closed and I had to do the McGiver thing from inside the truck with butter knifes to pop out the bottom cover to get to the latch. It was tricky but had no problems getting my hand down under the latch to pull on the broken cable to unlock the upper hatch.

I ordered new parts but until they arrive, I used an 1/2 inch c-clamp to keep the broken cable in the Actuator unit. It works great and might put one on the new part just for some assurance.

 

[mbw]

That LR design guy in the suit needs to remember this when they put all this new wiz-bang tech in the prototypes. A few years ago they could barely figure out a simple latch.

Looks like a job. Nice work.

 

[bbyer]

link to manual latch release mod

Thanks for posting and please keep us informed of your progress.

I recently had to replace the cable puller as I will call it. This time the cable was OK, but instead the puller had just got tired. The part number is FUG500010 and LR calls it an actuator. The upper hatch release latch part number that you are having to fix/replace and gives most people problems is LR0174470, at least for my 2005 LR3.

The puller is a gear motor rather than solenoid. I discovered that when on its last legs, while it may not have the energy to pull the cable with the engine off, in some cases if you catch the problem early enough, if you leave the engine idling, then the system voltage is a couple of volts higher and that gives the gear motor as little bit more energy to work with.

As such one may not have to tear the lower rear door apart the hard way.

The link below relates to my installation of an emergency release pull that I incorporated for next time. Now is the time to install one when all is apart as the hard way is just no fun - how much blood did you draw?

http://bit.ly/1gQqlvW

 

[RoveRon]

Good pictures, thanks for posting. I recently ran into the same problem and ended up replacing both the upper tailgate latch and actuator. In my case, the cable never came out of the actuator, so I figured either the actuator was tired or the latch itself was wore out. Worked just fine for about 2 weeks and then stopped working again.

After talking with an excellent tech at Atlantic British, came to the conclusion that the real issue may be in the exterior button of the upper tailgate handle. Part is on order directly from Land Rover and will be installed this weekend.

Frustrating that LR had to take the hard road approach to develop a latch that is so commonly used.