rear gate issues

finally got my rear gate to open up from the inside, just had to pull up a bit, it's still touch and go whether or not it opens all the time so I'm leaving the interior piece off, blasted the whole thing with PB making sure to hit every electrical wire :banghead:

here's the issue, these two lovely pieces came outt when I popped the hatch piece off



thin nut and a rubber stopper, both gate sides are still intact and couldn't find where this would go, pretty sure the nut fell off the wiper motor but my outside gate handle is loose and can't find a way to tighten

Just offhand, I'd guess that the nut and rubber stopper come from the wiper motor. Have you, or some previous owner, replaced a wiper motor? It's quite possible those pieces fell out when that was done.

As for the latch, you will notice that in addition to the little rod that you can adjust, the basic design of the latch is somewhat deficient, in that the handle pushes on the latch assembly in a way that allows excessive play when the pivot wears. If you can tighten that pivot it will help. When I ran out of rod adjustment, I was able to get function back by slitting a hunk out of a washer and jamming it in to shim that sloppy pivot.

great idea, I actually was holding three washers that would do the job on sat, tossed them under the bridge i was building, probably washed away in the nasty storm we had.....and I just replaced my motor in aug so my fault on the nut, just don't remember a rubber stopper there

I think it's supposed to be a rubber grommet sandwich there. The original inner grommet probably stuck to the hatch when you pulled the old motor out and dropped off later.

If its above 20 at break time ill check it out