Tailgate Down Notification.

[MonkeySpank]

Maybe bring up an old topic but today someone was polite enough to let me know that my tailgate was down when I pulled into the gas station. Fortunately none of my groceries fell out. Since I have a tonneau cover I can't immediately see if I left it open.

After some thought I think the best solution might be to tie into one of the door switches with a magnetic switch on the tailgate. If done correctly I would get a door ajar message from the gauge cluster if my tailgate is down. This also could be incorporated into the tonneau latch as well.

Has anyone attempted this on a newer F150? I know the electrical can be finicky on these trucks from experience.

Thanks!

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[PTrahan]

Wiring is there. One of the tailgate connectors has an empty pin for it. Need a reed/contactor/magnetic switch and Forscan to enable it. It’s on the interweb somewhere with a video and pics.

 

[scott011422]

That would be great if someone could find such a thing. I tried to tie into mine to trigger the bed lights, Its its not an "ON" or "OFF" signal. Voltage didn't change. and there is no LIN listed in the diagrams, So it shouldn't be on a network. It must be some kind of resistance reading. Without taking a tailgate latch all apart, we couldn't figure it out. (switch is in the tailgate latch)

 

[Kanuck]

You can check this thread.

https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/tailgate-warning-add.9155/

 

[scott011422]

Thats interesting. We did the same tests and got no results. Ran that wire to chassis ground and a ground in that same harness and nothing happened. Put a scope on that wire and only saw some slight changes. This is all in backprobing mind you.

I have the power tailgate, I wonder if setting the truck for the power tailgate changes the behavior of that circuit??

 

[powerboatr]

Logic is in there. Mine is po wr and it displays in IPC that gate is open. When in gear

 

[Kanuck]

Mine is not power, therefore I didn't spring the extra $$'s for the switch to tell me my tailgate is open because Ford figures that you opened it manually, so you should know to close it.

 

[MonkeySpank]

You can check this thread.

https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/tailgate-warning-add.9155/

Thanks for the link, guy was able to enable tailgate notifications in Synch using Forscan and hooking a switch to a connector near the spare, this is a better solution then what I was thinking. Why wouldn't Ford enable this on all models? It's like a $2 switch...

 

[Kanuck]

Thanks for the link, guy was able to enable tailgate notifications in Synch using Forscan and hooking a switch to a connector near the spare, this is a better solution then what I was thinking. Why wouldn't Ford enable this on all models? It's like a $2 switch...

But to get this $2 switch you need to get the power tailgate for $$$$$

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