hey guys

i have a broken trunk latch motor..................since the Z28 is mainly gonna be a street/strip car...........i wanna know if i can put in a non power hatch latch???

was there ever such a thing for 3rd gens??
will one from a 4th gen work???

 

They have a different bolt mounting pattern. But I did pick up one from a Pick-A-Part that had the older style slam latch bolted onto the gutted frame of a pull-down style. It would take a little work to get the right height, but it can be done. Lon

 

Yeah, I ordered a slam latch just to find that out. You have to weld and cut out the other one and weld the new on in its place, major pain in the ***.

 

my car doesnt have that stupid trunk motor! :lala:
i think 85' and older didnt have em.

i know your pain tho, i had problems with the trunk motor in my formula. The motor was broken so i just had to slam it REALLY hard.

 

damn, guess i'll have to shell out some major bucks for a new motor

 

Not necessarily. I can e-mail you some scans from my HELMs manual so you can diagnose and fix it. Also just dissabling the unit and slamming the hatch is a bad idea. The motor housing is plastic and attached to the frame with 3 screws. It will soon fail with the shock of slamming the hatch. Once broken away the unit will just float around loose. If you want to repair the hatch pull-down unit, parts are available (I stock them). I suppose I need to start offering a conversion kit for those that want to swap it out for the older slam latch style unit. That is a rigid metal unit and is up to the task. I'll pick up some more pre-86 latches my next trip to the Pick-A-Part and work on the conversion kit. Lon

 

On the brackets:
I retrofitted the Bose radio rear cover to mine, it had specific brackets that I cut from the donor with a chisel, then popriveted to mine, they're behind the taillites so they don't show.
The pulldown bracket, if riveted, would be covered by the license plate, and I'd suggest painting the drilled hole, for rustprevention, and the rivets after installation for appearance, as I did. This should allow retrofitting any hatch pulldown assembly I guess, without welding.
I ground a chisel specifically for this purpose, it now looks like a ramp (only 3 sides instead of 4) and works well to cut spotwelds.

Just a thought.