Replace power with a regular liftgate strut?

RyanRC · Mar 13, 2019

Hello all

I have a new 2019 Overland coming that from the looks of things the door frame of my garage will not be high enough for the liftgate not to hit it when fully opened.

I am looking at what I can do about this and one thought I had was to replace the one powered tailgate strut with a regular one as then at least I can have some ability to raise it only as far as I need to by hand and not have it where the power strut is driving it every time into the frame before it finally decides its hit a obstruction.

This past weekend I spoke to a couple of people at the dealership about this including one of the techs and he said while it might be simple to do mechanically, he has no idea what the computer it going to think about it as he suspects the position communication and fully closed proving part of things could be in the strut.

He said if it freaks it out they might be willing to see if they could get into the programming and redo it to make it think it did not have a power strut…but I’m not really sure I want to monkey with things that much.

So, has anyone ever tried this say even in just seeing what would happen by unplugging the power strut?

Thanks

barak · Mar 14, 2019

If you have a standard height garage and the overland has QL you will be fine. My 2014 summit fits in and I have just enough room to open the liftgate all the way. I just have to make sure I pull in far enough that if the garage door is closed it won't hit the door first.

RyanRC · Mar 14, 2019

The Sheetrock ceiling of the main part of the inside of the garage is fine, its the door frame height that is the problem

This is compounded even more as my garage is what is called a car and half garage, and as its as wide as it its, there is a steel load bearing support column for the center part of the house that has been the bane of every car I have ever tried to park in it.

Essentially and even while I have plenty of room to move it more forward, if I go in too far I cannot open the drivers door without hitting this column.

So what ends up happening is I get in just about two feet past the door frame and that's as far as I can go.

The raw door frame btw even with the door closed is only about 6.5 feet high, then if the door is open it hangs even a few inches below that and with its metal step rails right at the worse spot.

Anyway, don't mean to make a long story out of this, but for all the room the garage has, its actually quite limiting and pretty dictating to me where I can actually put the car.

barak · Mar 14, 2019

That sounds lower then mine. My crossbeam where the garage door closes is exactly 7' high from floor to bottom of the beam. They call mine a 2 car garage but only way you would get 2 cars in there is if they are those little smart cars, the width isn't there for 2 standard size cars.

azzolij · Mar 14, 2019

If you grab the tailgate as it is rising it will stop immediately. It will also stop once it hits an obstruction like the garage door frame you described.

I usually just avoid opening the tailgate in my garage, but that's just how I chose to deal with the issue of low garage ceiling of about 6 feet 9 inches.

jacko15 · Mar 14, 2019

From my owner's manual:

"If the electronic liftgate release is pushed while the
power liftgate is opening, the liftgate motor will disengage
to allow manual operation."

RyanRC · Mar 14, 2019

jacko15 said:
From my owner's manual:

"If the electronic liftgate release is pushed while the
power liftgate is opening, the liftgate motor will disengage
to allow manual operation."

Thanks for this.

I just went through the E versions of the 2019 manual an found where it states the same so this may be at least one of the ways to deal better with this.

hoppyjr · Mar 14, 2019

I don’t have the power tailgate on my jeep, but on my Subaru there is a function that allows you to set the opening height. You might check the manual for something like that.

bill_de · Mar 14, 2019

Mine just makes it if the Jeep is in entry/exit mode.

Also check if the stop on the garage door opener can be adjusted to let the door open a bit further.

--

Jim_in_PA · Mar 14, 2019

In the end, the simplest and least expensive solution would be to put some padding on the part(s) of the structure that might interfere with the lift gate as it opens fully.

Grimmjpr · Mar 14, 2019

when I pull in my garage, I have a townhouse it may or maynot hit the door/frame depending on fractions of an inch. If i lower the suspension to Load/entry height I'm ok or if I back in I have room. Lower garage heights and smaller openings are a pain.

bill_de · Mar 15, 2019

Grimmjpr said:
when I pull in my garage, I have a townhouse it may or maynot hit the door/frame depending on fractions of an inch. If i lower the suspension to Load/entry height I'm ok or if I back in I have room. Lower garage heights and smaller openings are a pain.

Just in case you didn't know, if you hit the down button for the QL while going 25 or less, it will begin lowering when you get to 15 mph. That way by the time you are in the garage you should be good to go. Once it starts lowering don't go over 15.

As soon as I turn onto my street I set the cruise to 24 and hit down. If you go above 25 it cancels the down button. The lights on the QL button flash if you set it going under 25.

After a while it becomes second nature.
--

RyanRC · Mar 15, 2019

Jim_in_PA said:
In the end, the simplest and least expensive solution would be to put some padding on the part(s) of the structure that might interfere with the lift gate as it opens fully.

This is definitely something I plan to do, but I'm figuring it will be best to wait until I have the car at the house to see the exact points it might contact and then try to figure out the best ways.

Currently I am thinking about a black foam pipe insulation that is often refereed to as ArmaFlex which can be sliced down one side which I could then slip over the doors step plates and support rails and then hold with tie wraps or black duct tape possibly.

Naturally these would be for situations of last resort though as I really would not want to go the route of just letting it hit and stop on something like this on a regular basis.

RyanRC · Mar 15, 2019

bill_de said:
Just in case you didn't know, if you hit the down button for the QL while going 25 or less, it will begin lowering when you get to 15 mph. That way by the time you are in the garage you should be good to go. Once it starts lowering don't go over 15.

As soon as I turn onto my street I set the cruise to 24 and hit down. If you go above 25 it cancels the down button. The lights on the QL button flash if you set it going under 25.

After a while it becomes second nature.
--

This past Saturday I went by the dealer and made some measurements of the lift gate of a JGC an for the one my sales rep showed me while it did not have an air suspension, he said it how it was parked was about the normal lowered ride height that one with air suspension would be at its lowest possible height.

So by my measurements to the ground the highest point of the liftgate (which was about at its middle crease) was about 7’

Then the end tip was around 6.5

So perhaps this may not be what I will actually see but is basically what I made my assumptions on and in part as the references for this post.

Btw, I thought about asking here what others had for heights but one thought that might be annoying to expect others to run out to their cars to take measurements, plus figured what ever it is…it is as I have committed to buying the car.

In the end I am fairly sure that even for a inch or so one way or the other there is still going to be some point of contact someplace so if anything the best thing I could do is see if I could figure out someway that the door would not be driven open by some kind of motorize strut and controlled by hand as that would be the most best way I could keep it from hitting for sure.

btw bill_de, may not sound like it from this thread, but really like your by-line.

Mark_E_Bye · Mar 23, 2019

A couple suggestions...

1) Having just gone from a 2012 Ford Edge with a power tailgate to a 2018 JGC Laredo with a manual tailgate, I'll be the first to tell you that you will rue the day you switched out your power gate to a manual lift.

2) Being that my Grand Cherokee is a much "taller" vehicle than the Edge was, I considered that the tailgate might bump into the garage door when open. My solution was to glue (with construction adhesive) some strips of indoor/outdoor carpeting to the inside of the garage door where the two doors might meet. So far, it has worked well.

3) Years ago, I bought (what was then) a full-sized Chevy Blazer. The big one. I discovered I couldn't get it into my garage due to the lack of height of the bottom garage door panel when the door was opened. The guys at "Overhead Door" suggested (and installed) something they called "quick turn brackets", which brought the bottom panel up to be parallel to the garage's sheet rock ceiling (i.e. they eliminated that little bit of angle of the garage door's bottom panel when opened). Slick as heck!

Replace power with a regular liftgate strut?

RyanRC

barak

RyanRC

barak

azzolij

jacko15

RyanRC

hoppyjr

bill_de

Jim_in_PA

Grimmjpr

bill_de

RyanRC

RyanRC

Mark_E_Bye

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