Diabolical

the power hatch motor on my brother's 87 camaro broke. will the hatch motor from a 90 firebird fit? will any hatch motor from any third gen work?

TomP

Yep, they'll fit. You might have a slight problem with the Firebird's key lock. Camaro key locks were mounted right on the taillight panel. A Firebird key lock is a bit more secure, and is mounted on the outside of the tailight panel. A cable connects the Firebird key lock to the hatch motor. It's a simple connection though to swap a cable lock for a normal lock. I have a Camaro's pull down motor on my Firebird. Pull down motors started in '85.

When you remove the old one - no, wait, BEFORE you remove the old one, take a sharp awl, or scribe, or knife, or icepick, or centerpunch, or etc (you get the idea), and trace the outline of the hatch motor screws' washers on the car frame. The hatch motor has up and down adjustability to it. By marking where the current bolt holes are, you can put the new motor in exactly the same spot as the old one. You can also give the bolt heads a quick shot of spray paint to mark their original location.

If you put the new motor "too low", you can risk breaking it, due to extra stress on the unit. If you put the new motor "too high", you risk getting a leak when it rains, because the hatch won't seal all the way.

Be sure to swap your brother's key cylinder onto the junkyard hatch motor! If that's not possible, at least get the key from the junkyard.

Look up a guy named Lonsol, he usually posts in the Suspension board. I think he makes replacement parts for the hatch motor. Or, search the tech forum for "hatch motor". You might want to search there anyway!

lonsal

iTrader: (2)

Or just wait and He'll, I mean I'll post here. I stock the 3 items that are commonly needed to repair the 86-91 hatch pull down units. 1) Nylon guides. These are made from solid nylon, are a direct drop-in replacement and much stronger then the OEM version. 2) Gear Nuts. These are the plastic part that the motor turns to drive the latch portion up and down. They shred their teeth with age. The symptom of a failed gear nut is the motor
continues to run without shutting off. 3) Motor housing. These commonly break where the 3 screws mount it to the frame. I reinforce this area with 4 pieces of aluminum and epoxy. E-mail me and I'll send you my current Price List.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions
e-mail: topdownsolutions@yahoo.com

86IROCZ

Hey lonsal, Do you have any plans to make the nylon guides that go in the power seat tracks?

lonsal

iTrader: (2)

I have a sample track that someone kindly donated. I just didn't know if there was much of a market for them. Every 86-91 F-Body got the hatch pull-down unit. Many fewer got the power seat option. But yes I can do them as well if there is a market. I have about 4 new products in development in front of it though. Pricing would be comparable to the hatch guide kits.

P J Moran

I bought seat track guides for mine from GM. They were reasonably priced and looked "just like" the ones for the hatch pull-down, so I bought a couple of extras.

They're similar, but not the same, and won't work for the pull-down. But check with your dealer for the seat track guides.