My sister has an '86 IROC, and the hatch won't latch shut. On both her car and my '88 Trans Am, we've had situations in the past when u put the hatch down very lightly, and it's enough to activate the hatch motor to go down but NOT enough for the hatch motor to actually latch. In other words, the motor is in the down position but it's not latched to the hatch.

I know there's some way to trick the hatch motor into coming back up. But I haven't done this on my car in years, so I don't remember the trick. What is it??

 

IIRC, there's a tab sticking out somewhere on the motor that you have to trip with the end of a screwdriver, and then the motor will come back up. You'll need to remove the plastic trim panel that covers the motor to get to it.

 

You don't need to remove anything... There is a little lever on the left side of the latch mechanism when you are looking at it from the back. Push it down with your finger and hold it until the motor assembly bottoms out and the reverse switch trips. Let go again and the motor assembly comes back up.

This is if both the latch switch and the reversing switch are good.

Then adjust the latch.

 

What he said ^^^ .. but the switch is just a switch, don't expect a spring to trip or anything. and it's kinda in the center of the latch where the receiving latch on the hatch would lay..

 

On mine, the motor will sometimes overheats. So if I just disconnect the battery for awhile, and reconnect it. The motor will come back up.