A friend pushed in the key hole in my rear tailgate. Has this happened to anybody? Any suggestions on a fix?

Here some photos; Imgur: The magic of the Internet

My guess is the clip that holds the cylinder in place broke or came loose. I think you might have to start stripping down the back panel.

As mentioned below, if I wasn't clear, gotta go from the inside of the back door.

The license plate surround can also break. You'll have to pull off the inner panels to diagnose.

-Charlie

It happened on my '96. The lock is held in place with 2 screws that screw into a couple of plastic tubes. On mine, the 2 plastic tubes broke off. Once I got access to it (I can't remember what was involved in removing the license plate and handle assembly), I was able to put it back together using the same broken pieces, but with longer screws. My handle had started not working properly (too much play before it engaged), so I took the opportunity to bend a couple of little metal parts around to account for the worn plastic parts in the handle.

Happened to me as well a few years ago. Finally got around to fixing it the other day. Was pretty simple. As others said the plastic screw tabs broke free. Once you remove the interior panels its pretty easy to see what happened. All I did was carefully apply some epoxy to where the screw tabs broke and held it in place for a few min. Just be careful not to get epoxy on any moving parts of the tumbler, but it was pretty obvious. Once it cured I then applied some JB Weld to the outside kind of like a caulk. I pressed it into the gap between licence plate housing and the lock Maryland (again don't get any on moving parts), there is a little rim of metal around the tumbler. It is probably more solid than ever before.

Only issue I ran into is that one of the wires broke when I was fiddling with it and now my window doesn't roll down with key. It still does with dash button. All the wires and plastic is super brittle on the 20+ year truck.

steel putty is also good for building up, or rebuilding around the area where the screws go. just make sure to leave a hole or original plastic for the screws. the putty hardens so it will crack if the screws arent going into the original plastic or a hole so just the threads bite.