I am pretty sure that anybody who has owned a later 3rd Gen F-body knows the love and joy of dealing with the hatch lid and pull down motor. Not the best idea to use plastic pieces to pull down a heavy hatch, but nontheless I've found ways around it...
I don't feel like paying more than $10 for a new/refurbished hatch motor unit (since I can by a used one for less than $3 at the junk yard...literally). I also don't want to deal with anymore nylon track guides that will eventually break. I am going to put two ball-bearing wheels on each track. Since I have two hatch motors now (since I bought the other one so cheap) and they both work fine, I am actually considering usuing both motors. The best setup (so far) that I've thought about was installing the second motor mirrored to the original on the opposite side...
The question:
If you're at all familiar with the whole hatch assembly, you know that it was a pretty smart idea on GM to put in the toggle swich on the lock part that reverses the polarity of the motor wires and makes it spin the opposite way and thus making it go back down... Since I am thinking of the mirrored motors setup would work best, I need to know what wires I have to switch so the motors will both be spinning the same direction. There are four wires that connect to the actual relay. I believe the colors are brown, orange, white, and blue. I am not 100% sure if that is the perticular order. All I know is that one is positive, and one is negavite. I need to know which ones so switch so the motor will spin the opposite way than intended when acquiring power?
By switch, I mean cut, strip, tie, etc... Can you help me out? Possibly any flaws in my setup, questions, comments? If anyone is interested I'll be more than happy to post pictures...
P.s. I'm sorry if this might be in the wrong forum, since my original question is about wiring, I figured it goes in the wirnig section. Thanks.
ps.

 

bump

 

Actually, I went ahead and used the housing on the second mirrored motor so I did not need to switch the wires. Thanks for atleast looking at my topic...

 

I would like to know more about the ball bearing set up

 

One of the motors I had was not working well, so I decided to use the good motor. I ended up actually direct bolting the plastic motor housing to the mounting plate. I drilled a couple of holes straight through the metal plate and the plastic to add extra strength to keep the motor housing from breaking even more once the trunk lid is slammed on top. The ball bearings turned out perfect and it works like a charm. I will try to have pictures posted within the next day or so...it'll be much easier to explain then...

 

It's been a while, but I finally have pictures of the roller bearings,


sorry if the pics are a bit blurry, but you can see the bearings in the tracks where the guides used to be.

 

Is it still functional as a pull down or is it now stationary?

 

I still functions as a pull down, and even better since it has the roller ball bearing. Simply speaking, think of a roller skate on a track...

 

I agree the 88-91 ones were JUNK. The earlier design (86-87) were better, but still can break. Now for the good news: The TDS 101170 aftermarket nylon guides I make and sell have a 5 year replacement warranty. I've been selling them since mid-2001. I haven't yet had a customer contact me for a replacement because their guides broke. IMO you went to a lot of trouble considering an easier solution to the problem already exists.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions

 

I probably did, but this is my hobby, messing around with the car and finding creative ways to make things work. Besides, we have to experiment every now and then...

 

Greetings, I just joined this site and I hope this is the best starting point for my question. I have an 87 Camero that HAD a functioning rear hatch motor, but suddenly stopped working. I replaced the motor unit as I was told this may be the problem. It still does not work. A friend who is a mechanic and can't find the problem and said he needs the wiring diagram. So I guess I have two questions: 1. Does anyone have any suggestions on what the problem could be and 2. Where can I find a wiring diagram of the pull down assembly? Thanks!

 

Sounds Annoying, Thank God For The Older Actuator Style Poppers ^^

 

HCR13, Where are the pictures? I wanna see.

 

Any procrastinators that are in need of repairing their headlight motors take note: The job is far easier if you buy the parts and do the repair when the headlight buckets first start to fail instead of when they no longer rise. Yes you can eventually get the headlight bucket up at that time by grabbing hold of each side of the bucket and shaking while lifting. It also helps to curse the fact that you waited just one cycle too long to decide to make the repair. It also helps if you turn it into a two-man job and have someone either press the headlight switch on/off while you're shaking and lifting the headlight bucket or turning the **** on top of the headlight motor while you are doing it. The bucket will eventually rise suddenly.

Lon

 

 

well his last activity was on the 19th of january. So he is either ignoring the purpose of being a member of a message board or he un subscribed to this thread. Or he many no longer have the pictures in his photobucket account.