Hatching A Plan

Yesterday I talked about how annoyed I was at myself for allowing the problem with my truck's dashboard lights to linger for years when it turned out it wasn't that difficult to fix. Buoyed by the success of my Saturday undertaking I decided to continue the momentum on Sunday and attempt to fix another long-standing issue with my truck - its broken back hatch. You see, the hatch broke several years ago on the 4th of July (I remember the date because I had something in the back of the truck at the time and the problems I had getting that item out are stuck in my head). It wasn't that the lock itself was broken - there was no tension in the handle, so it felt as though it had simply disengaged from the release mechanism. Anyway, I allowed this problem to last for this long for a few reasons: 1. I could still get things in and out through the rear window, which was good enough. 2. Having a broken rear hatch was a convenient excuse if I ever found myself not wanting to help someone move. 3. The rear hatch lock on the last truck I had also broke (apparently this is a thing with Fords) and trying to fix it was a massive annoyance from the very start. When I added all those factors together I decided that as long as there was no pressing need to be able to get the hatch open I saw no reason to spend any time working on it. But, while surfing YouTube to see how to take apart the dashboard I found a few videos about taking apart the back door and it didn't look nearly as hard on the Mountaineer as it was on the Explorer and since my Sunday was free I thought it couldn't hurt to at least give it a try.

The first thing I had to do was take off the skin on the door, which is where I ran into problems when this happened on the Explorer. You see, that skin actually tucked under sections of the door and in trying to gently pull it off I cracked in a couple places. I was able to mostly patch it up but I'm the kind of guy whose eyes immediately go to stuff like that, so the crack bothered me for the rest of the time I owned that car. Honestly, the thought of that happening again was one of the biggest mental hurdle to me even starting this particular project. But, as a wise man once said it is often the first step on the journey which is the hardest so I folded down my seats to get into the rear section of my truck and started to slowly crowbar my way around the edges, wincing every time I hear what I thought was plastic cracking. I had visions of wandering around Goldie's (the local junkyard) hunting for a replacement, but as it turned out once I got the piece around the window loose the rest of it just lifted away without incident. My biggest problem then was the fact that I barely fit in this part of the truck and now I had to figure out where I was going to put this large hunk of plastic so that it was out of my way and not going to snap later. Rather conveniently the hole for the window fit around the driver's seat and that got it mostly out of my way.

Under that was a layer of plastic wrap stuck to the door (don't ask me why), but that came off rather easily. Of course, all this did was leave me facing the back of the door with a few open sections for me to try and find an angle to diagnose my problem. I managed to catch a glimpse of the back of the lever, which is when I discovered that unlike the video on YouTube in which the problem was simply that a nut had come off a bolt, in this version the bolt to the lock wasn't directly connected to the handle, but next to it and as I suspected, the connector which is supposed to hold the two pieces together was nowhere to be found. The only good part about this issue is that when something breaks off inside of a door it really has nowhere to go and I was quickly able to find the broken piece of plastic. Now, yesterday I praised the Ford company for sparing no expense when it came to the number of screws holding my Mountaineer's dashboard together. Today I feel the need to point out that money had to come from somewhere and apparently it was from the rear lock department, because the connector to this rather important piece (being able to store lots of stuff in the back out of the weather is what makes an SUV an SUV after all) was made out of rather flimsy plastic. Admittedly, it was a rather awkward looking thing - picture a short plastic stump with a clamp on the end - which would have been a really annoying thing to fashion out of metal (which I was about to learn). Still, if the option was this or coming up with a better design for the locking mechanism I think they should have sent the engineers back to the drawing board.

I tried to bypass this connector by shoving the bolt directly through the hole in the handle, but there was no way I could make the angle work. I also figured that lying on my stomach and trying to do this with very little light wasn't helping, so it finally dawned on me to pull on the locking rods and make sure the door even opened in the first place. Fortunately they hadn't rusted too badly from lack of use and for the first time in several years the back hatch of my truck was open to the outside world. But while this made me quite happy for a moment, it didn't solve my problem. In fact, all it really did was show me things from a new angle - one in which my issues hadn't changed much from what they had been before. My first thought was that I could just reattach the broken plastic connector because it didn't actually look damaged, just that it had come off. But whether it was structurally screwed or never that strong to begin with, every time I pulled on the handle the connector popped right out again. If I was going to fix this I was going to have to rig up some kind of solution out of something a little more sturdy. Fortunately I was attempting this repair at my parent's house, where 3 generations of tools and parts have collected. Sure, none of them are exactly what I was looking for, but considering my skill level the proper part would have been wasted on me anyway. Besides, having the right part makes things easy and since when are home repairs supposed to be easy?

My father was the one who eventually came up with the very bright idea of just using the eye from a hook-and-eye. It wasn't going to be what you would call a tight fit, but at least it would put up more of a fight since it was metal instead of plastic. The next issue was finding a bolt that fit because, again, Ford doesn't want you messing with their parts since they would much rather you pay one of their technicians to fix your issues so they use awkward sizes. Well, joke is on them because I my dad literally has drawers filled with oddly-sized nuts and bolt, most of them older than me. It took a while but we finally found a couple of clips to hold this contraption together and while my hand wasn't given much room to work with I was eventually able to get the nut turned. It cost me a fair amount of skin on my knuckles, but so far it appears to be working. I will confess that it does not sound smooth, as there is a less-than-comforting thumping noise when you pull on the handle, and that even with the latch working I will not be volunteering to help everyone move all at once, because the hatch is pretty much only to be used in emergency situations (since I estimate 30 pulls before it breaks again, I will be extra picky about which situations warrant it). But that is not the point. The point is that for the first time in years the door is working and I could open if it I wanted to. All in all I have to say it was a very successful weekend of crossing things off my to-do list. Hopefully now that they are finally done I'll be able to keep these items from popping back up on that list for a long time.