OK, Jack may get the gold star on this one.

I took the solenoid out and ran one wire to a known good ground and another, through a push button switch, to a fused power terminal in my auxilliary fuse box. Holding on to the wire that comes out of the top of the solenoid I hit the switch and the solenoid worked. Gravity pulled the body back down, returning the solenoid to a ready position. I think this is sort of what happens in the rear door. Since the wire is connected to the door latch (and the latch is spring loaded) the latch returns the solenoid to the ready position.

I put the solenoid back in the rear door, but moved the ground to some exposed metal and ran a power wire outside the VX with the inline switch and fuse. Hit the switch and the solenoid worked like a champ. It pulled the door latch and returned with no problem. I put all the wiring back the way it was and hit the factory tailgate switch that I have installed and.....NOTHING. At least now I know that the solenoid is good and the problem could be a fried switch or relay. My next step is to bypass the factory switch and use the inline push button to see if I can start to isolate the problem.

Marlin, I did test the solenoid with the volt meter (set to ohms) and it would start out high but quickly drop to zero. I have no idea what that means since the solenoid seems to work, or is there supposed to be no resistence? Also, now that I think about it, I don't know if the plunger was up or down at the time of testing. Could that have made a difference?

One thing that was a little strange was that everytime I triggered the solenoid (outside of the VX) there was a small puff of smoke that would come out of the top of the solenoid where the wire exits. It didn't smell like an electrical burn and I'm wondering if it was just dust that has been building up over the past year.

Thanks for your help guys. Hopefully I'm getting closer to a solution.

I LOVE this site (and the VX family).