I have a 86 Trans Am and noticed something that seemed odd to me. In the rear of the car where the taillight assembly and center section is located there is a hole that is used to access the lock for the hatch, easy enough. Well there is no lock or hole in the body, nothing. The car has the power release/close trunk and there is a wire that can be pulled from the inside to open the trunk, I assume in case there was no power. Is this a common thing with these cars or did someone make a boo boo at the factory,?

 

there's no hole through the sheetmetal for a lock? have you taken the interior and tail lights out to check? because there should be one there. if there is just a wire to pull then your lock was broken off. but there should definitely be a hole through the sheetmetal

 

Nope no hole, looking through the hole from the outside of the center section you can see the paint of the car on the sheet metal. I have taken apart the interior to access the assembly. The wire is a heavier silver braided wire apprx. 1/8 in. diameter that appears to have been factory attached. The wire has a little lead ball or some other metal crimped on the cable that is fed through a hole on the release lever of the assembly. Sure looks factory to me .

 

That cable attached to the inside of the lock cylinder. The other end connects to the pull-down motor with either the manual hatch release (black in color) or a electric solenoid release (silver in color). The releases are attached with a 10mm screw. At one time your car had a key release.

Lon