ok i took some parts off, i replaced the motor, it pulled down once and now cant pop up, i have the hatch bungeed down right now, i tried to use the manual release it pops but doesnt come up, i need all the help i can get thanks

It pops but doesn't push the hatch up?

Its attached to the car with three screws into the motor housing. The problem is the housing is made out of a type of plastic. After years of opening and closing, the housing breaks. PM lonsal, he sells new housings that are reinforced with aluminum so they won't break.

i replaced the motor and housing, sorry i left it out, right now my hatch isnt closed, the motor is in the down position, i turn the key to pop it so it will come up, and it wont come up

This might help...

Stick your finger down through the nylon brushes on the left hand side, you should feel a small switch..Push is down, and the motor should rise and reset. Worked for me...found it by accident!

i've tried it, thats how i got it to go down, now it wont come back up, any other ideas?

When you go it to go down did you hear a "click" at the end of the cycle. You MUST hear it click (that is the reversing switch being tripped. I had the problem on a customers car and had to take the unit out again, disassemble until I could get the lift rod and gear nut out. Then turnd the gear nut about 1 turn. It is important that the gear nut isn't installed too deep on the threads of the lift rod. It should be installed with roughly 8.25 revolutions. I'll be getting a lot more experience with this adjustment when I begin my program of rebuilding the hatch pull-down units. Also what shape were the guides? The guides play a key role in keeping the latch portion aligned to the frame. If they are broken it will put more stress on both the gear nut and the motor housing. I hope you did assemble the lift rod correctly. The tabs must be facing the motor or they won't flip the reversing switch. It IS possible to install it wrong. Another clue is the round cylinder of the rod won't be riding in thegroove. I'm in the process of updating my instructions I include with the guide kits. Good luck, Lon.

Lonsal,
Please take a look at my post on my hatch problem and let me know if the kit would fix this please. I would appreciate it!

Your post saved me a trip to GM. Thank you very much.

I believe i will try the re-enforced part and new guides lonsal. Thanks to all for the response and info provided.:hail:

I had mine do that before I replaced most of it, if I rember right if you take a test light and put it in one of the wires then short to ground, use a 30 amp fuse to protect yourself and car. Let me check on which wire it was, ill post it for you tommorow. I don't rember how I figured it out I think I just traced out the circuit figured it out. The relay back there may be bad, I had to replace mine. If the switch is bad you could hook power directly to the motor, get the palarity correct one way will be up the other down. that will get it up, if you can't fix it move it about half way up and unplug it that away you can at least lock it for the time until you can repair it.

Until I got everything working right I use to have a cheap $3 test light with a fuse in it instead of a light to do this every so often when it happened.

The power to the motor of teh hatch pull-down unit can be disconnected in two ways. 1) unplug the white connector from the reversing switch which is attached to the motor. 2) disconnect the red/white stripe wire from the blue wire.

Lon

its the orange wire from the motor that I use to short to get it to move. No garantees though, be careful

I'm working on my 88's one right now, so I dunno if your years is the same but
when you took the parts off and put them back on, you have to make sure that the reversal switch will be tripped when the pull-down rod goes down.

The system uses two switches, one on the top where the hatches latch goes in, and then one near the bottom of the assembly (a black box with a switch on it).

When that bottom switch is cosed (I assume) and the one on top is opened, the motor reverses. So it is possible that the switch on the bottom is not tripping, or even has gone bad?

I'm not too sure about the power and leads and all that electronic stuff, my buddy is an computer/electrical engineer, he checked everything out with is volt/everything meter and gave me the OK. He also figgured out that one of the brshes in my motor had cracked in half..

I need to see if there is some way to replace that. For now we just sorta balanced the half in there and witht he spring, it is holding, and the motor now turns...

I haven't found a source for brushes yet. I have used motors in stock $9.50. You made the common mistake of removing the motor case. I caution about doing that in my installation instructions. The two switches are called the striker sensing switch GM p/n 20627125 and reversing switch GM p/n 20614880.

Lon

On the ones I got from the Junkyard to take good parts off of and build one good one, their is two different part numbers on one of the switchs, one being off of cars older than I Think 85 and the onther newer ones until than went to the second design. Of course it looks like it will work it just has a different wire connectior on it. I take a look at my used parts and get the P/N off of it.

Yea, removed the housing as a last resort because nothing else seemed to be working, so we though there might be something wrong with the motor, and lo and behold when we took the housing off a little piece came flying out.

It was half the brush... if you hadn't guessed.

So when we placed the brush together, and gave power to the motor, it worked, but it will definitely break again soon. Also I can see why the housings crack all the time, they are really not great plastic. Well, why are they plastic in the first place?

Why did they even make this stupid lift gate thing? It makes no sense...

From CAMARO the Third Generation by Michael Lamm: pg 70-71; "A subtle 1986 standard add-on was the power hatch closing mechanism. Its main purpose was to pull the glass down snug without anyone having to slam it. Additionally, it automatically released the hatch slightly when you opened either side door, and it retightened the hatch after you shut the doors again. The purpose was to let trapped air escape from the car so you didn't have to slam the side doors."

They are plastic obviously for weight and cost savings. Why design it from metal? It will cost more, weigh more and won't need to be replaced. The dealer enjoys selling you a new one(price a new one just for jollies 86-87 p/n 16600049, 88-91 p/n 16604066). Actually there is another reason, the part isn't unique to the F-Body.

Yes two versions of the striker sensing switch were used. I have used examples of each (86-87 & 88-91), but couldn't explain the difference in pricing between the new switches until now. I JUST recd my sample order of 20627125 (86-87 switch) and the 16604067 (88-91 switch). Since the used switch looks the same (even having the same p/n 16603877 molded on it). I was curious why is there so much difference in price between the two? I thought the 20627125 must be the switch only, where the 16604067 must include the wiring, since it is listed as a switch assembly, where the 20627125 is listed as just a switch. Otherwise why is one over DOUBLE the price? I have my answer. Both p/n's will get you a striker sensing switch with the COMPLETE wiring, all you need to do is plug in a relay. The only difference in the wiring is the power connector (blue wire) that the red/white stripe wire attaches to.

Lon

I just finished installing the new parts I got from LON at Top Down Solutions. It works like a charm!!! Finally, a closed hatch that works like it is supposed to. THANKS LON! I followed the instructions to the letter and it worked fine on first installation...no adjustment necessary. That task is not difficult, but keep the directions at hand. If you don't have one of Lon's modified housings...get it. A cheap fix to curtail a recurring problem.

Nice car. I'm glad I was able to help. I really believe the reinforcements I make to the motor housing will prevent them from breaking for many years to come. I can't stress enough how important to have good functioning hatch struts. For example if the struts are marginal and the hatch is open a gust of breeze will slam the hatch closed. The stock plastic motor housing just can't handle that kind of shock. I guarantee it will break. When I get a chance I want to do some life-cycle testing of the stock motor housings and my reinforced versions. If your struts are weak, get new ones with a lifetime warranty from your favorite auto parts store and hang on to the receipt. It is my personal experience that GM hood & hatch struts get weak very quickly. After owning my car for 1-1/2 yrs the hood struts were too weak. I replaced them with GM units. Once again 1-1/2 years later they couldn't hold up my stock steel hood. I bought new onew with a lifetime warranty from Pep Boys 8 years ago and they are STILL holding the hood up fine.

Lon

I second the idea of not getting GM hood structs or hatch structs, The ones I have from Advanced on my hatch still holds up my hatch after 4 years and I have that heavy rubber spoiler on it also. Much better than GM ones, and like lon said if you get the type with life time warranties you dont have to buy new ones which is not cheap.