Question about rear liftgate no longer latching

[thepuzzlemaster]

I've got a little bit of a head scratcher here about an issue I recently ran into on my rear tailgate latch.
'92 Town Ace

One day last week I tried to open my rear hatch door and couldn't get it to unlatch. No matter how hard I pulled up on the handle, it wouldn't budge. The lock/unlock mechanism seemed to work fine, but I couldn't get the tailgate to release.
Today, I removed the trim panel on the inside of the door, and was able to manually force the latch mechanism to un-latch. But now it won't re-latch. I removed all the various parts of the locking/latching mechanism from the liftgate and inspected them, and as far as I can tell, they all seem to work fine. Nothing seems seized up or anything. I sprayed lubricant on all the moving parts just to be safe, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.

I took a look through this post, which outlines cleaning out the actual latching mechanism. https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/...ighlight=latch
It seems like this is likely where the issue lies, given that the rest of the mechanisms are about locking/unlocking and ultimately releasing the latch. Unfortunately, there's no way to open that part up without drilling through some rivet-like connectors, which hold the case together, which would require a bit of work to put it back together. I'll definitely do that as a last resort, but curious if anyone has any ideas about what could be going on here?

I'll admit that I don't fully understand the workings of that mechanism on the inside. But the latch is open by default, and rotates easily when pressed, and releases back to the open position when depressed. Everything appears to be aligned correctly, and the tailgate appears to fully close when it's shut. It just doesn't latch at all.



I did notice that the electrical wire going into the latch mechanism (which you can see an example of in the linked post) is damaged on mine. One of the wires had its sheathing tear and the wire itself might no longer be connected either. But i wouldn't expect the functionality of the latch to be dependent on any electrical wires. I am honestly not even sure what those wires would be for, given that the motor for locking/unlocking the tailgate is done with a motor elsewhere.

Anyone have any thoughts?

[Jan-Willem]

The wire is the door-closed sensor. For cleaning i would suggest a can of brake part cleaner and some fresh grease first, because they are indeed not ment to be opened.. i may have a broken open one somewhere to make a picture if it is helpful.