For the tailgate handle.. A couple of years ago I had to shut mine extremely hard to get it to latch. What I did was take the handle out of the tailgate and try to lube the center hinge mechanism there the handle brings the two rods in via the ears on the handle. It worked but I had to do this every couple of months which got annoying. What I ended up doing it drilling out the rivet that holds the "ears" in, directly in the center of the handle on the back side. I took the assembly apart to see that rust particles were seizing one ear to another, there was a plastic washer between the two that was supposed to prevent this was in bad shape. I cleaned every thing up on a bench grinder, hacked up a bolt and ground down a nut to about half the original size so it would fit (GM used a rivet because the clearances are so close). I put the assembly back together about finger tight and tested to make sure it would function then I welded the shortened nut to the shortened bolt, otherwise the nut would eventually back itself off. In the end it was a little more work than I was anticipating and I probably could have just got a new one for the time I spent on it, but its been working flawlessly for a little over a year and a half now. And chances are this " homemade" handle will last longed than if I were to have just slapped a new one on.
