Mayberry

Last night, I installed the OEM tailgate damper to soften the drop on my tailgate. Watched a video,had my tools ready, took the right side out, and then....stuck. The left side would not come out. I pulled, twisted, angled, hit with a rubber mallet.....nothing. I couldn't get tye tailgate off to save my life. I was able to angle just enough to still install the damper attachment. But, I never got the tailgate off. Is something put of alignment on my tailgate, or is there a trick to sliding the left side out?

articcatbill

The right side (passengers) has the slot, so once you align the hinge correct you can pull that out of the round pocket. To get the left side out you simply slide the tailgate over to the right to get it out of the round pocket.

Sometimes if you pull the tailgate to far out on the right side the left side binds and is hard to pull out. That is the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head.

Mikeincalgary

I had the exact same problem! Had the Mrs and kid hold the tailgate while I installed the new brake and damper shock.

Mayberry

That's the problem. The left side wouldn't pull out at all. I tugged like crazy and it wouldn't budge..

articcatbill

Did you unhook the back-up camera cable at the base of the tailgate? Maybe the plug wasn't allowing the tailgate to slide to the right?

Mayberry

Yep. Fully unplugged

articcatbill

Humm I don't know then, I don't have a 2016 and not a Lariat, 2015 XLT. I figured that they would be the same, but maybe they are different in some way?

TrkDrvnFool104

I had the same issue but I think I found the cause. I have the tailgate step and as a result there is an extra tab on the box that engages what I'd call a fork on the bottom of the tailgate. It's on the right hand side of the truck. Anyway, I noticed that even with the right side of the tailgate out of it's mount the tab and fork could still hang up on each other. I had to have it at exactly the right angle to pull the tailgate to the right and release the left side so I could finally pull it off the truck. What a pain in the a**! Hopefully it'll go a bit smoother next time.

Sport Mode

When I did mine I had the same problem, I ended up just pulling the right side out 6-8 inches with the left strap connected to the left side so it would not fall. this gave me enough room to to remove the old hardware and install the new. I used a piece of 2x4 to hold the tailgate out from the truck... Not sure any of this made sense but it worked for me.

meganjoe

I also had the same problem.. We had to use a board and a mallet.. It was like the paint was so thick it did not want to let go... We greased it up when we put it back on..

Joe