Hey guys. '87 Camaro here with an electric, automatic shutting hatch. It worked fine today, but the last time I went to shut it...the latch didn't take and the hatch will not shut. I have reason to believe something may have been lodge between the hatch and rear fender, so maybe that threw something out of whack?

I was wondering if anyone knows why the hatch all of a sudden stopped shutting, and has some suggestions as to what failed to work, or if it is possible to just override the automatic electric closing mechanism and just lock the hatch shut.

Thanks a lot, it's cold outside and I need the car early tomorrow, my faith rests in your hands!

 

Sounds like you got it confused, the motor is in the down position without the decklid down. Hard to explain how to fix it, but pull the hatch up and stick your finger straight down where the motor would hook the hatch. Press the little tang that would normally hook the decklid and the motor will reset itself and come up.

 

That happened on my bird once. I took the plastic pannel out and found out that all kinds of stuff had went wrong. The plastic fillers on the slides were broken, so the motor slipped down and the trunk latch couldn't reach the pull down motor. On top of that it turns out that the plastic gear in the motor had also stripped out. Best thing to do is to buy a new one. Although rebuild kits are available. A new pull down motor is abot $80-$100 deoending on application and area.

 

As Dialed_in tried to describe, it sounds as if you need to re-set the hatch pull-down motor. If that it the case what happened is the hatch hook pressed the small black switch just in front of the latch (called the striker-sensing switch), yet the hook failed to latch. If this happens the pull-down motor will power down a little until the hook stops pressing on the switch. In the down-cycle once the switch is released the motor will stop. You need to complete the cycle down. To do it just press on that switch. The unit SHOULD power down until it reaches the end of the cycle. At this point you'll hear the CLICK of the reversing switch being tripped. Release the switch and it SHOULD power all the way up and be re-set.

If that doesn't solve the problem, then remove the hatch surround trim panel and follow the Tech Article I wrote on repairign it. If it turns out you need any parts they are available from my web site.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions