is there anyway to manually take down the hatch motor on these cars? mine sporatically works, mainly if its warm then it'll work, if its colder then it wont, pretty annoying. my hatch hasnt been down in 3 days now, just clipped closed but the exhaust is still coming straight up into my car (i substituted the cat for an electronic cut out so it gets pretty smelly lol) and its getting really annoying with the smell, i am going to try to yank it apart tomorrow to see what i can figure out, but i would like to get it lowered all the way somehow until ican get a new hatch motor.

 

I know what you mean I think my gear is stripped. The motor just runs and runs but nothing ever happens and you eventually have to unhook the battery to make it stop. I unplugged mine in the hatch and have to always use the key to open it. I am interested with a way to just do away with it so I could atleast use my popper.

I hate to say it but the only way I can think of is going in there and unbolting things so you could get the plastic gear out of the way so you don't strip it.

 

well the thing is that its not stripped, when it pops up, it wont even go down...like it wont even try. doesnt turn on i mean. im just trying to find a way to make it just staydown for now until i can geta enw motor cuz its supposed to rain tomorrow lol

 

You might want to try Lon at Top Down Solutions, he is very knowledgable about the pull down motors and stocks upgraded parts to repair them permanently, you don't necessarily need to buy a new motor. You can just call and talk to him, he's a great guy and will be happy to help you.

www.top-downsolutions.com/

TA

 

ok cool, thanks for the info...i'll contact him. the hatch finally went down today lol, i took the whole assembly apart, test lighted piece by piece, tried the relay's the hatch pull down switch and the motor. and i put it back on and it still didnt work. i drove to my gf's house, and wheni got there, it was closed lol. it seems to work in warm weather but not in colder weather. but i will try calling the top down solutions website there. thanks again

 

your reversing switch is shot. as for the one with the stripped gear? rip the gear out of the pull down unit in any older cadillac or roadmaster its the same,

 

Yep. reversing switch aint switchin lol. Just replace the entire wiring harness that is mounted on the pulldown unit.

Ditto on the gear. The whole pulldown unit is actually the same.

 

anyone know where i can find a reversing switch? hawks wont return my calls or emails (like usual, i think they secretly have a grudge against me, although i never did anything to them lol) and i called my local gm dealer (knowing that these were discontinued cuz of the age of the car, but i thought there might be some laying around...i mean how many people really need a reversing switch for an 87 trans am? lol) anyway, the dealership said they had in the gm database just 1 in the whole u.s. of a. which was located in north carolina, i called them and they said "yeah, people keep callin us about this damn reversing switch, ive looked all over, we dont have it!"


so in trying to find one, where do i look? lol

 

Did you try me (Top-Down Solutions)? Yes GM discontinued the reversing switch. I refurbish them. Hawks Thirdgen should have a few of mine if that is more convenient to you. That's the good news.

The better news is I don't think your reversing switch is bad. I suspect the striker-sensing switch. Here's why. The striker-sensing switch starts the up or down cycle. The reversing switch ends the cycle. You are having a problem with the starting of the down cycle. If your battery was drainig, or if the reversing switch popped off of the hatch housing I'd say the reversing switch was the problem, because the reversing switch didn't shut off the up cycle. You didn't mention that, so the reversing switch did it's job and shut off the power to end the up cycle. Your problem is that the down cycle isn't starting. This is because the contects in the striker-sensing switch are worn or dirty. When the contacts in the striker-sensing switch do finally make contact your pull-down unit works right and sucks down the hatch. You can try spraying the striker-sensing switch with WD40. If it was dirt or corrosion that may get it to working again for a while. If the contacts are worn it won't help.

I guess I just lost out on a reversing switch sale. But, hey I may have sold a refurbished striker-sensing switch. lol

Lon Salgren

 

I went ghetto, and retrofitted a Cadillac trunk pull down motor in my 91.