My tailgate lock used to be really hard to turn. When I was replacing the tailgate interior cover the other day I noticed a way to improve the locking mechanism by simply removing the lock and rotating it 180 degrees. Right now its way easier to lock/unlock. The only other difference is that now I turn it the opposite way to unlock it.
By rotating it 180 degrees, the lock's arm is aligned better with the rod that goes into the door latch assembly. Now when I turn the key, I'm pulling and pushing the rod straight up and down instead of at an angle. It works so much better that I wonder if this is the way the engineers intended it.
