Tailgate Won’t Open.

[volvo again]

...wondering if it's possible to fit the interior handle from a scrappie...

[Paul240480]

^^^ No idea on that one. It appears that the actual ‘release lever’ on the outside has broken. Maybe the ‘rod’ that lets the catch release has come detached from it.

The annoying thing is that the ‘release lever’ is held on by two internal nuts. One is accessible, the other is cunningly hidden by the rear window wiper’gubbins’

Looks like that will have to be removed to see exactly what’s come astray.

However rain stopped play for today a little after lunchtime....

[Paul240480]

Slow progress on this one..... yes I took the wiper motor off in order to get to one of those nuts. But once I’d removed the motor and said nut, the ‘release lever’ was still solidly in place. Seems like it was glued and bolted in place. So it looked like I needed to replace the whole ‘unit’ that houses the release lever & number plate lights....

The bit that goes here^^^^ . Needless to say, if you remove this whole piece, there is no need to remove the wiper motor.
So once that was off, I found that a plastic part that did the ,’releasing’ had snapped inside , not the usual wiring issue for me....
I put out a plea for a replacement part & sourced one in Croatia of all places. Tho in graphite grey.... which I thought wouldn’t be too bad.
I agreed on the 15 euros, and got it sent. Then after agreeing I got a message on here saying that one in the correct colour was available, lol.
Ho hum.
Anyway the one from Croatia landed here in France on Friday. It needed the wiring , from the number plate lamps transferring along with the rubber seals. This is as far as I’ve got. It was a right fiddle getting the big seal to go on too!

Bottom is the original unit, top the ‘new’

Then with the electrics and seals moved over to the ‘new’ one. Which in this pic is now the bottom one.
You can see the difference, the old one has no manual lock behind the cover, just a blank so relies on the central locking. The ‘new’ does have a lock in place. That said , I don’t have the key for it

[Derek UK]

Belts and braces. Can you attach a length of tough string or wire to the actuating mechanism or rod that you can route out of the top of the trim? That way, if it works, you could give it a sharp tug to release your lock. You could make the tugging end neat with a small rubber ball or a leather loop.

[Paul240480]

Well it’s finally done:

It works too. Looks a bit like it’s got a moustache now, lol.
I didn’t try your idea Derek, if this one does fail, I can just lever out the ‘disc’ that I cut out and open it with a pair of plumbers pliers.
It did feel a bit ‘stiff’ to start with, which was probably why it broke in the first place. I gave the whole release mechanism a spray with silicone left it a while and it’s much better.
If I’d of noticed it getting stiff , could of saved myself a whole load of hassle....