okay so i want to take apart my hatch mechanism and lubricate it so that i can open it again, it used to be fine and over time it got harder and harder to open... well i guess i waited to late to adress the problem, because now i cant get it open to take it apart! So anyone know how i can get this thing open?

 

You have to crawl in back and pull the gate panel off and then you can access the latch there to manually open it..Just pull the panel in the top middle so you can reach in there and manually release the latch..That's about the only way I know of without actually doing some cutting..Once that is done then lube tighten and adjust the latch so it works but while testing take the panel completely off..

Also if you look under the jeep you should be able to see the nuts that hold the striker in place..If you can get to them easily you should in theory be able to remove them and that should release the striker plate which will allow the hatch to open.

 

Also I found this...http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Jeep_Ch...Won't_open has 2 of the methods I talked about but in a tad more detail..

 

wow thanks man, ill try that. I cant really get the panel off for some reason, mines a 97+ so i think its different than yours but i cant seem to get the panel off the hatch

 

Yeah try getting to the striker nuts cause if that striker comes lose that hatch will open..