This summer, I'm going to be re-painting my decklid and spoiler. Instead of having to mask the whole car....getting it all dusty..and a chance of overspray....I thought about just removing the hatch and doing it serperate from the car. I've never removed the hatch from a 3rd gen...but it looks like it could be a little tricky. It looks like there are only 4 nuts attaching it to the body...is this true? I would probably have to have 3-4 guys help me out because it's probably heavy as hell. Is algning it hard to do? Is there anything that I'm missing? I probably won't be doing this till June, but I'd like to get a heads up on to what to expect. If anyone has any info, feel free to share. Thanks

 

You are correct...there are only 4 bolts holding the hatch to the body...two per hinge. Make sure you DO NOT try to unbolt the hinge from the glass..as far as I'm concerned, doing it that way is more trouble than it's worth.
Just be careful as you unbolt them...I had one of the bolts break free and turn with the nut...had to use a torch on the nut to free it...good thing the headliner was already out.

Two people can handle the weight easily.

You can also remove the hatch panel without too much difficulty...there have been a couple of recent posts on exactly how to do it, but essentially, you need to slip a razor knife between the window and panel after you unbolt all the steel. The knife is used to cut the urethane sealant between the glass an hatch panel.

 

When I bought my hatch from the junkyard I removed the glass from the hinge with no difficulties whatsoever. I originally tried to remove the hinge from the body, but that wouldn't work at all. I couldn't get the bolt to move an inch, even with a huge cheater bar. The bolt to the glass though were loose enough that I could practically remove them with just my fingers.

 

I'm not going to remove the glass or anything....just the hatch itself. I just need to paint the deck lid and spoiler (I'll mask the glass)

 

Me and my brother removed one from a Formula just the other day. No problems with unbolting from the glass. Not too heavy either.

Matt