So I've been thinking over how to add power locks to my tailgate. A very nice guy over at TS said he did it and sent me a description of how he did it but there were no pictures. He used a power lock with a 3/4 inch throw and said it worked, but we needed a one inch throw.
I checked my handle and it looks like we need a 1" minimum throw to lock and unlock the tailgate and have the handle operate smooth. So I did some searching and managed to get my hand on a few that would work. Unfortunately, I had to buy the whole box of six 3/4" and six 1" throw locks. I got them for less than the individual prices on ebay so maybe I can sell them on there and recoupe the money. Anyway, they are the actuators only, no metal bracket and no screws. So I had to come up with a new bracket and get some screws. The screws were easy. They are a #6 x 3/4" metal screws. I tried to make the bracket out of the left over aluminum piece from my fog light install. No luck and was turning out really bad and hard to make. Thought I might weld one, but a 12 gauge bracket was feeling too heavy and the big box hardware stores didn't carry anything thinner. But they do carry small pieces of sheet metal I thought would work. I picked up a 6" x 18" piece of 22 gauge sheet metal and decided to try it out. Well, it was worked out great. I bought it to try and weld it, I ended up just bending it how I wanted. I could cut the sheet with my snips, bend it to the shape I wanted, it was rigid enough for the lock (I think, haven't tested it yet with power), and light enough to work mounted to the tailgate handle. Here are some pics of what I did this evening. I made a couple of them. The first one marked "original" is a bit off, but COULD possibly work. The one marked "prototype 2" is my template for making the others. But the screw holes for mounting the actuator to the bracket have to be marked by hand each time. But this should work for the handles with or without the camera.
Here's some pics. Waiting till tomorrow for the paint to dry. Why brown? Cause I had some brown Rustoleum laying around and it's inside the tailgate. Also have to do the wiring tomorrow as well.
