I went to roll down the window in my 1996 4 Runner today and noticed that the lock mechanism was missing from the hole it belongs. It has been loose for years and I think it finally fell in side of the hatch. Can someone guide me how to get inside of the hatch to find the lock barrel and see if I can fix it?

DO NOT ROLL YOUR REAR WINDOW DOWN!!! Your lock barrel is hanging by its wiring and linkage and if you roll down your rear window it will hang up and bend/break associated parts. When I bought mine the barrel had already fallen in and been ripped off by the window use of the previous owner. Access is pretty simple to pull those parts out. Just remove the one bolt on your interior panel that holds your webbed handle in place then just pop the clips around the perimeter. Once removed there is another sheet metal access panel held on by 8 bolts or so. Remove those and the wiring harness clips on that panel if you dont want to leave it dangling, your lock assembly is visible from there. I havent had the time or money to bother with replacing whatever plastic piece the lock core mounts to (being that which was the initial break on mine) but it looked like I may have to pull the rear window motor and track to gain full access. Sorry for the partial here, the warning about further damage is the real juice of what I have to offer. Post your progress and findings...Im in the same boat, its just not that high of a priority for me at this time.

Haha, yeah, ripping apart the rear hatch was the first thing I did; did it the night I got the thing home. I am replacing a rusted out handle though.

Yeah, the back panel is really straightforward to disassemble. It's just as Diagram said.

I attached the exploded view from the FSM, might help.

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Lift Gate.pdf (49.6 KB, 3076 views)

Thanks for the heads up! I just read this and called home to make sure that no one rolls down the window. I'll post back with more progress later.

Thanks for the diagram, too.

This happened to me as well my first day with my new 4Runner. My back door wouldn't open, so I took things apart to see what was up. It was then that I noticed part of the problem was a dangling lock that had been jostled by my use of the rear window. I think the previous owners didn't use the rear window.

Anyway, the problem is the lock is screwed into plastic holes on the piece surrounding the licence plate. I guess plastic doesn't survive ten years very well. The door handle is quite rusty as well. I wonder how many parts I need and how much it will cost to fix this up right.

I left my 02 model at an off-airport parking lot and thought maybe someone tried to pop the lock of the rear hatch. When I took it apart I realized the plastic had broken allowing the lock to fall back into the hatch.

I took the chrome piece into a local Toyota dealer who looked up the cost and found it to be $225.00! I'm not paying that much for a piece of plastic, so I put it back together and am trying to figure out a way to secure it without giving away so much money.

I repaired my friends broken lock barrel with some jb weld. He had the lock snap off the plastic license plate holder. I pulled the plastic and on the side the screws were on wrapped jb weld putty around it. Then I put some liquid jb weld in all the areas I didn't get. It was solid as a rock when it dried. Just make sure you dont get any in the actual rotating assembly in the barrel.

That sounds like a good fix, rjaudi.

What I did for the time being is tied the lock up tight out of the way of the rear window mechanism, and put duct tape over the hole from the inside, then I filled the hole from the outside with silicon wax I use for braces. The hole is plugged and tidy and everything is fine except I can't use the key for the back door. The rest of the locking works, though.

Finally opened up the hatch today and saw what was going on. There are two screws that hold the metal lock barrel in to the plastic license plate holder. The screws had come loose and unscrewed themselves somehow. I had to remove the plastic license plate holder to access the screw holes. In fact, when I pulled it apart, the screws fell to the ground.
I just screwed them back in & put everything back together. All good now.

Lucky break...the "screw holes" are still attached to the screws and lock core from mine. Furthermore, I have some damaged parts I have to replace because of the rear window being used which snapped plastic and cut wires. Congrats on the fix.

How did you get in far enough to get the weld into the mount areas? take apart the whole thing, or use another method (dowel rod or something)? I'm working on this right now and this thread has been great.

Rear hatch wiring colours for 00-01 4Runner 3rd gen. I'm in need of the wiring colours at the 2 connecting harnesses and the orange coloured ECU box inside the rear hatch?
The current photos I have are in my album that is publicly posted but I need better photos please!!!

99-01 4Runner owners can do a guy a fav and remove the main plastic cover from the rear hatch and take some photos of the wires colours and how they connect to the 2 harnesses and the Orange ECU box, please and thanks!!!

Key was missing, clunking in trunk. Followed your great instructions and tore the tailgate apart this morning. Found the lock cylinder but the metal ears were all torn off. There was no way to salvage it and I never have a need for the rear key. Miraculously, while fishing around in the tailgate I found this perfect black "nipple". I pushed it in the hole with some JB weld and we will see how she does. Looks factory.

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Not one of Toyota's finer designs on this bullet proof car. Small cast iron or aluminum ears on a device like this that gets constant use is never a good idea.

This time with the picture!

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