junkyarddog

my rear glass is good,but the sheetmetal is junked (someone tried to crowbar my trunk open) I've heard that the trunk can only be replaced all at once because the glass is permanatly attached to the wing section! ....well us car people know that nothing is "permanatly attached" . I'm not sure if I'd want to go through the trouble of swaping the glass and the metal from different hatches. my glass is 50% tinted and has a defrost grid...so I'd like to be able to use it again,but if not I'm sure someone would want just the glass? what do the auto glass companies do when they have to replace the rear glass on a thirdgen?

gpierce

One can replace just the metal part of hatch glass. There are instructions how to do this in the factory manual. I'm doing this right now on my 86 T/A. I'm swapping the back part from a regular Firebird to use the standard wing and get rid of my lump of rubber spoiler.

Basically it says to put a couple of jack stands in the trunk area with a blanket over the top, remove the hatch struts, remove all the rear trim pieces, lower the hatch onto the stands, and remove all the bolts holding the metal part to the glass.

Then pry the them apart, there's a big black seal in between the glass and the metal part. That needs to be replaced when you do the swap.

GP