$10 DIY Power Lock Tailgate

Just give yourself a solid hour or 2 and a clean floor you can crawl around on under the truck. It went smooth once you have a plan in your mind.

 

The biggest thing was seeing that the actuator cannot be mounted directly to the sheet metal. It needs to be about an inch and a half lower. I found that mounting the actuator to a piece of 2x4 and then mounting the 2x4 to the sheet metal put it in the perfect spot.



It looks like the actuator is against the metal, but it's quite a bit lower to be even with thew lock mechanism.

I also took a pic showing how to get new wire loom through the plastic plate on the tailgate and bumper. Pop the piece out, undo the little snap holding it closed, then drill a new hole next to the existing hole. This fits 1/4" wire loom perfectly.



Now you can have a factory look (I late rotated the zip ties so you don't see the heads)



I personally chose to splice into the front passenger door instead of the rear, simply because it was easier to get to for me. And there is already a wire bundle going into the cab there. Route your loomed wire (please put loom over your wire and zip tie it to existing factory wire every few feet) along to this junction under the passenger door



And your wire comes out neatly under the passenger seat.





Ignore the bowl of muffins (or don't, you'll just make yourself hungry)

I routed my wire up to the passenger kick panel to this upper-right connector and spliced into the red and green wires.

The blue is the path I routed my wire. Up the floorboard and around the top of that wire junction, to follow factory runs.



All in all, this was such an easy mod, and an extremely cheap mod. No need to pay the $100+ for the pop-n-lock brand.

 

Of course I see this after I installed a pop a lock kit. I think the generic actuator installed like this moving a better part of the linkage when compared to the pop a lock. If my actuator ever fails I'm going to refit it with an actuator like this. Thanks for posting this up!!

 

Do you have pics of this? Not sure I'm picturing it correctly.. you got a small enough piece of 2x4, mount the actuator to that and then onto the sheet metal?

 

Maybe a dumb question, but any confirmation this will work with an access cab?

I've only seen guys posting with double cabs.

 

The wiring I went to (in the passenger kick panel) goes to the front passenger door so all models will have it

 

I can snap a pic on Monday when I’m back in the shop.

I took a 2x4 I have laying around, cut off a small piece (maybe 2 inches long) and screwed the actuator onto that.

So now you have an actuator attached to a piece of wood. Now stick that on the underside of the sheet metal and put 3 or 4 screws through the sheet metal into the wood.

I'm going to use one of Stew's pics from the original post until I can take one



The blue is our actuator. The red is a piece of 2x4 (or any scrap wood about 1.5")
This pic does a good job showing just how far below the metal the actuator needs to be.

 

Correct. I forgot to mention that in the OP. The actuator needs to be offset from the metal tailgate in order o be level with the tailgate lever. That's another benefit of the enclosure I made as it holds the actuator further down(while still encasing it)

 

Which wires do you tap into up there?

 

the ones circled in red

red and green wires

 

I just did a check. Locking the tailgate first then closing. It stays locked.

 

Thank you.

 

depending on your particular actuator wiring, colors to connect may vary. my particular actuator had green and blue wires, yours may be different. make sure when you press lock it locks and when you press unlock it unlocks before securing your wiring

 

Hey @mesojdm or anybody else that may be able to lead me in the right direction I would appreciate it. Would 16-2 landscape wire be okay to run with this mod, or am I stupid? I'm going to tackle this tomorrow and curious if I should work with what I have or go buy some new wire from the hardware store. Thanks guys, and I just got done installing my meso ultimate turn signals, I love them, thanks Meso!

 

Yes that's fine. Just make sure it's not solid copper and multi strand. I actually use home audio 16-2 (as you can see in the picture) because both wires are protected in a sheath.

 

Cool, thanks @mesojdm ! It's multi strand so I'm ready to give it a go. Appreciate all your hard work, TW wouldn't be nearly the same without you.

 

My pop and lock failed on me who knows when and I am look into replacing it . Is there a source of the actuators they use? I can tear off their fancy bracket and install on the new similar actuator.

 

Don't tear off the bracket, just swap in an actuator from Amazon.

 

Can someone share a pic of the pop and lock bracket. And mounted if possible. If not just the bracket will do. TIA.

 

Really enjoyed doing this install this past weekend. Ran me probly close to 20 bucks as I also needed wire loom cover and electrical t tap connectors and didn't have them lying around. Took me a little over a couple hours, learned a lot about my truck and had a good time with the install. Install looks factory and super clean. I would definitely recommend to anyone. And a big thanks to @mesojdm and @destin_meeks as I referred to their pics and instructions anytime I was unsure about something. That was a big help.