This is the thread for what to do when your H3 Rear Swing Gate will NOT Open. Anybody that has helpful info to add from your experience, please feel free to pitch in.

So you go to open the H3 back door -Swing Gate, pull the outside handle, and nothing, doesn't budge. Happened to me a while back with a bunch of stuff I needed to unload after working just fine with zero issues for years.

Causes? There is a few.

1. Broken Handle. Since that is on the outside and you can see it, pretty obvious.

2. Broken Latch mechanism on the interior handle carrier. The thing the handle moves when you pull it to move the latch rod, to open the door. Pic below with the money circled in red. If that pivot breaks, the spring breaks, or both, not going to work.


3. Broken or disconnected latch rod inside the door. The rod is pretty stout, I doubt it could ever break, but it could come detached from the inside handle carrier and then it is not moving from the outside of the truck.





For 1 through 3 above, to open the door you just reach in and grab the latch rod and pull/push it down to open assuming that the door is in fact unlocked. This is what you see when you look in the swing gate at the latch mechanism with the rod going up to the inside handle carrier. Phone pic by sticking it in there to show what you see when looking.



4. The biggest pain in the azz, the dead power lock mechanism. When you hit lock/unlock on the master control or a remote fob, that lever either locks or unlocks respectively.
Locked (power lock lever down).


Unlocked (white lever up).


So, if your power lock mech fails, and you are lucky enough to stick your thumb/finger in there to push the white mech lever up, the door will then open. I am not that lucky. When mine cashed in, it was seized and was never going budge. So.... this is what you have to do to open the door from the inside. First you need a highly sophisticated specialty tool that is not commercially available. Until now! Here it is, the H3 Hummer Stuck Azzed Broken Lock Actuator Pull Tool. Limited availability. Call now and often....


You need to pull down the latch pin inside of the rear door actuator, which of course you cannot see when looking into the door. Here it is... the little metal pin sticking out pointed to by the red arrow. Use the tool to blind hook it and pull down.


Another look with tool in action.


All the lock/unlock does is deflected the latch rod to the side when in lock mode so the rod cannot engage the lock pin to push it down.

Here is my latch actuator with the old dead power lock mech (black) in position with the new replacement (white) to the side, Two screws hold them in place, easy swap.


One last pic, the door with the whole lock actuator removed...


More to come, got to go.

 

Great info. As our trucks age, I would gather that this issue could start cropping up more and more.

 

Great info Doc! All we need now is a mod that adds a manual lock/unlock **** and door open lever on the inside of the door! Or maybe just a single control that both unlocks and opens the door. Not sure what GM was thinking when they didn't include that.

 

Here is a peak of the electrical connector just in case this helps others figure this out.

 

Great information

 

For the R&R pull out the Jack for extra room. Once the door is open it is pretty easy.

You do not need to remove the entire rear door plastic trim, but you do need to pop off the bottom part at least at the door lock end. Then you can reach the on bolt that goes into the actuator frame through the back door. Three screws on the end into the lock need to come out and you can detach the lock rod from the inside handle carrier. The electric plug just needs a squeeze on the tab so it can disconnect. Swap the power lock actuator and reverse the removal steps to put it back in.

 

Youtube video of a guy that added an interior lift-**** to open the door from the inside.

 

I saw that one. If your lock mechanism is dead in the Lock position, that wont open the door either.