i've got an '86 camaro with the mechanical pull down hatch which really bothers me because sometimes it doesn't pull down correctly and i have to fix it..

we had an '85 firebird that had a slam down hatch, and i'd much rather have that then what we currently have

how hard is it to switch from the mechanical to a slam down? cost? can i just pick up parts from a junk-yard and pop them in?

thanks

 

The way my one friend did it was just unbolt the motor and bolt in a standard latch for it to catch. I haven't done this personally, but it doesn't look difficult.

 

I thought 84 was the last year for the non-power hatch ....
Oh well, you should be able to just switch latches i think.

My buddy has a 87 SC that the motor just basically died so now its a slam hatch, just that his back well becomes a pond after rain.

 

Why not check the TDS website above for repair parts and keep the electric?

Here's the link:

http://www.top-downsolutions.com/def...e99e04e9d35e08

 

On my old IROC-Z I just disco'd the motor and pulled the latch down with some thin wire.

 

When i got my 84 Z some one put the motor on and it didn't work so i just took it off. You will have to take of the plastic panel to get to it. You may have to take the latch of, i did and it made it easier, so just take a grease pencil or a permanent marker and mark where the latch is take it off, take the motor off , hide the wire, put the latch back on and go. Thats what I did and it works fine. Might i suggets gently letting down the hatch to make sure the latch is properly lined up before slamming it down and discovering it was slightly off.


Drew

 

why don't i just fix it? because that would cost more money and i don't see much of an advantage to having motor vs. slam down

 

The electric hatch motor makes a better seal than the regular mechanical hatch. Not to mention if you fix it right, it will have a lot less problems than the mechanical latch as long as you can refrain from slamming it and stripping the plastic gears like everyone else does.

 

my 85 bird had a non-power hatch. I think all the way up it depended on the perticular package the car had.

My hatch motor went out a couple of months ago. the way I had rigged it the same thing happened. we had a heavy rain a few days later my car smelled nasty. looked in the hatch well and there was a little puddle of water
to fix that a friend and I shut the hatch and pulled the motor mounts down as hard as we could then put self tapping screws threw the slider.
now the hatch doesnt leak no matter how hard it rains. only prob is my hatch wont open, if I do manage to get it open(which takes 2 people) it also takes 2 people to shut it. one out side slamming down the hatch, the other on the inside shoving the motor back.

 

I would think you could just get the latch out of a non-moterized car and put it in. As for as '84 being the last year I had a '87 Formula350 that was non-motorized. I'm wanting to do away with the motor on my '91RS, just to do away with it, I see it as less weight!

 

Not really much weight too them in the long run... the housing is plastic the cog gear is plastic you have a worm drive that has metal casing and a relay... sure the release and grabber is metal but you would need those anyways.

Also it's not as much as stripping out the gears (cog gear) as it is breaking the housing. Some genius at GM decided to make the housings out of plastic then only put 3 screws that hold it to the main bracket on one side. So when you slam a hatch it can crack the housing which eventually will cause the bolt holes to break and the screws come loose... then the motor freewheels since there isn't a anchor to the body anymore.

Believe me I know this first hand I just rebuilt the motor earlier this year cause my housing bolt holes shattered and splittered out. I had to swap a new housing on PITA.

 

A friend broke my power one by slamming it. So to fix it, we forced it into the completely down position, drilled holes through the assembly, and bolted it in place. Now its a "slam" type. Sounds dirty, but it worked. The wiring is still hooked up to it, so the release button at the console still works. You might just want to figure out the wires that go to the motor and cut them, but leave the ones required to unlatch. (Make sure it's in the down position) I don't know how it's wired, though, so this may not be possible. Look at it closely and see how it works, and a solution will present itself.

 

Theres a connector on the side of the motor housing. It has 4 or 5 wires... some of those control the worm drive that raises and lowers the motor.

 

when the hatch is in the down position, unplug the motor.

 

Mine's in the down position now & you have to slam a dozen times or so to get it to latch. It's started to bend the rear panel from slamming. Now I only open it when I have to.

 

wow i never knew with the power one the hatch goes down by itself, so u just push a button then it goes up then push it again and it goes down without have to get out. man thats amazing i learn something new everyday. i wanna get that lol.

 

The hatch itself doesn't go up and down.

To close you pull it down smoothly and slowly till you hear a click that's the motor grabber it... then a sensor trips (relay) and the electric motor starts and spins the worm drive which in turn spins the cog gear which makes the shaft in the housing go down. So it appears that the motor is moving down when really it's just a shaft that the grabber is pressed on it at the top. Everyone confused yet?

You might be thinking well if it goes down how the heck does it release and come back up. Simple theres a relay toggle on the housing and when the shaft reaches the bottom a part of the shaft hits the toggle and clicks it over to the other setting thus letting it reverse and spin the worm drive backwords. When you unlock the hatch or use the hatch button. It clicks the grabber release and starts to power the motor pushing the shaft back up. The same thing happens when the shaft reaches the top. A little part of the side trips the toggle again, but this time it's tripped the other way making the worm drive work in reverse again to close it when powered.

 

man i dont know why people have such problems with the electric hatch, my 86 is original and still works perfectly, and if it breaks, i will repair it, why would you mickey mouse a hatch? like the previous replies, water leakage..... slamming so hard that the hatch lid is bending? geez, fix it right

 

I've never seen, in all my years of junkyard crawls, an 86-up f-body that didn't have a power hatch pull-down.

If anybody has an 86-up without a power pull-down, it was probably replaced with the 82-85 manual unit.

Should just be a bolt-on change; my ex-fiance (expletives deleted) had an '87 Camaro that the pull-down busted on; her dad replaced it with a non-powered latch from an '85.

The 82-85 hatches didn't need any slamming. What some of these guys who "rigged" their old power latch are experiencing is just basically that the latch is too far down. That's why the housing has slotted holes for the mounting bolts; the whole housing is able to be raised/lowered to allow for a proper seal.

In fact when removing/replacing a power latch with another power latch, care should be taken to reinstall the new/rebuilt unit in the same spot that the old one was taken from!! That means some careful measureing. Otherwise, install the new one too low, and you strain the motor. Install the new one too high, and you won't get a proper seal, and youll get road noise.

I'm on my second power latch on my '86. First one died b/c the nylon gear stripped out. Now, whenever I close the hatch, I "help it close" by pushing down on the spoiler panel.

 

i feel safer with a manual latch because then if my friends use it i'll know they can't break it..

and i don't think i need the extra pull down (tighter squeeze) of the motor hatch..

 

my first car was a base 91 firebird that didn't have a power hatch release. It was wired for it though, but no switch, or motor.

 

Yeah, my nylon guides broke then my housing broke in the process of it being twisted.

 

i love how expletive is plural

 

check the mounts for the entire assembly, the welds to the frame could have gone away. My 91 did and i just put two bolts into it

 

My hatch motor went out some time ago, so instead of spending several hundred dollars on a proper fix, I just let the weight of the hatch hold itself down (since the motor is in the down position, the hatch fits flush). I take the hatch supports loose and the weight of the hatch holds it down just fine without letting it bounce. This leaves the car wide-open, but it's not obvious. When the hatch needs to stay up, I hold it open and reconnect the supports. This can be very inconvenient, but I can put up with some inconvenience for awhile if it's saving me a few bucks.

I can take some pictures of this if anyone's interested.

- 89_IROC

 

Depending on what goes bad it could cost around 30 bucks at most for a fix. You figure 15-20 for a housing, then another 4 or 5 for white grease. Course mine I had to do nylon guides too so that was around another 20 bucks or so... so it cost 50 to 60... still not that costly.