Tailgate locking assembly

A tailgate locking assembly adapted to be used in combination with a tailgate, which incorporates a tailgate latching mechanism comprising a rod attachment plate consisting of a spring-loaded pull handle which controls the position of a pair of lever arms to which are attached a pair of horizontally displaced latching rods that are normally spring-biased in an outward direction where the ends of the rods are inserted into respective rod receptors which maintain the tailgate in an upward latched position, wherein to release the rods from their outward latched position the spring-loaded pull handle is pulled which causes the latching rods to move to an inward unlatched position, which temporarily disengages the ends of the rods from their respective rod receptors to allow the tailgate to be lowered, said tailgate locking assembly comprising:

• a) a Z-bracket having an upper vertical section, a contiguous horizontal section and a contiguous lower vertical section, wherein the upper vertical section having an upper bore and the lower section having a lower bore, wherein the upper bore is aligned with a plate bore in the rod attachment plate and a bolt is inserted therethrough which attaches said bracket to the rod attachment plate,
• b) a key lock having a front end incorporating a key slot, a threaded outer sleeve and a rotatable inner core having an outer protrusion that can be rotatably placed in either a first position or in a second position by rotating a key inserted into the key slot, wherein the front end of said key lock is inserted into the lower bore on the lower vertical section of said Z-bracket and attached thereto by means of a nut screwed into the threaded outer sleeve, and
• c) a locking arm having an outer end and an inner end, with the inner end having an arm bore that is dimensioned to be inserted into the outer protrusion and attached thereto by an attachment means, wherein said locking arm can be selectively set, by means of the key, to either the first position or to the second position, wherein when the latching rods are in their normal extended latched position, said locking arm is rotated to the first position which allows the outer end of the locking arm to interface with one of the lever arms, thereby preventing the pull handle from causing the two rods to be placed in their inward unlatched positions, thus the tailgate remains locked until the locking arm is rotated to the second position, in which position the tailgate can be lowered.