Tailgate release

[USAndretti42]

My S2 has a little spring thing whose job is to lift the tailgate when the lock is released but it doesn't. What happens is that the spring does not get compressed by the tailgate when it's closed. It just bends over. Because it bends over quite easily this does not give it enough pre-load to lift the tailgate. What supposed to stop the spring bending and get compressed only? I was thinking of drilling the lock so I could fit a pipe clamp over the spring to keep it in place. Any better ideas? There must be thousands.