Late build '91 Camaro RS.

Hatch motor has been working fine since I bought the car in February, then today all of a sudden it started making a really loud buzzing noise when it's almost fully closed, and it continues to make that noise unless I push down on the hatch. At that point, the hatch latches fully, and the noise stops.

Knowing nothing about these, the only thing I can think of is they used a plastic gear somewhere, and one of them has stripped out or disintegrated. Looking at TDS's website, nearly every part they sell is for the earlier style, with rebuilt motors in the $400 range.

Does anyone know the part I need, where to buy it, and how to install it?

 

You may need just the motor/gear housing and some of your own time if you are handy. Those go for $40-$60. I put a new housing in and it was better but still skips on closing a little so I am also getting a replacement gear for $9.

 

I'm hoping it's just the gear -- the noise it's making sounds EXACTLY like a bad plastic headlight gear on a 1997-04 Corvette.

At any rate, I took the rear cargo trim panel off for a closer look, and didn't see anything obvious without disassembling it. No visible cracks in the housing. FWIW, I tripped the switch on it several times while I had the hatch open, and it goes up and down perfectly fine when the hatch is not latched, no weird noises. Still has the noise when trying to close the hatch though, but I can still push it down and "help" it close properly.

 

These units famously go bad. Pretty much every one of em is gonna fail at some point. You CAN simply replace piece by piece, but sometimes cleaning, fixing, replacing EVERYTHING is just the way to go. Check out our sponsor Top Down Solutions for various parts. I bought all my replacement stuff from him.

 

Yeah, I was a little surprised when they worked on both of my '91s when I bought them, which were both purchased at parts car prices. I think bad replacement hatch lift supports killed this one -- the new ones I installed back in February were so strong that it took both hands and nearly all of my body weight to close the hatch. I put the old ones back in shortly thereafter, but I guess the new/wrong ones were there long enough to mess something up.

Going to try just the gear nut first, looks like the only other part that's available is the motor, but I'd like to think my motor's still good.

Does anyone know of a guide that details how to replace the gear nut on a late 91-92? All the guides I've seen are only for the 1986-91 cars.

 

Finally found a decent 1991-92 guide on some weird non-third gen website. Here it is for anyone else that needs it: http://sparkys-answers.com/2008/12/1...atch-does.html

 

I just got the complete kit from Top Down Solutions and it wasn't a difficult job to rebuild the unit. Works excellent now.

Less than $100. Can't complain much about that.

As expected the $9 gear was stripped. But having the new reinforced housing and better grease should help that to not happen again.

GD

 

The gear nut is the same for both the 86-early 91 style and late 91-92 style pull-down units. Yes I sell them as TDS 109111.

Lon Salgren

 

Thanks Lon! Was waiting for you to chime in, seems like you're always responding to hatch motor related threads.

Already ordered the gear nut, but will definitely keep TDS in mind if that doesn't fix it...