1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Also, get same color if at all possible.
I did this at the junkyard one time. I took it off the junk car myself, took mine off my car myself, lugged the good one to my car, and then got a guy who was just leaving to help hold it up while I started the four bolts on the hinges (M6, 10 mm heads). Then I got the struts on, and adjusted it by myself.
First thing to deal with is the wiring. (If there's a single plug for it all, it's up above the headliner board and not worth trying to access. I don't think there is one very close.) What I did is work the boots loose from the body on the one I was buying. Then I pulled out the wires as far as I could get and cut them at max length, as close to the body as I could.
Have a wire stripper and crimping pliers, and plenty of insulated butt connectors in a couple of sizes. Then keeping the replacement's wires as long as possible, trim them in steps so no joint will be at the same place as another, then strip them and put a butt connector on each wire.
(When you take your old hatch off, you'll pull as much wire as you can out of the hatch and cut that so you have as long leads as possible coming out of your body. Then after hatch is attached to car and struts are holding it up, make your splices, color for color, and tuck wires up into body and work rubber boot into the body opening.)
Before you go to the junkyard you might want to pull the interior panel off your hatch and figure out how, then remove the lock cylinder, to install later in the hatch you're buying. As I recall, pulling that panel was a bitch: after the eight visible twist-out fasteners, there's six tough pry-out prongs along the top edge, one at each outer corner and then four, about 5 inches apart from each other, near the middle. (The old one is still out and kicking around so I just looked at it.)
Pulling the struts is easy, they're held, top and bottom, by little spring clips like the ones that hold the pin for the clutch clevis; separate them a bit and slide them off. Next a plastic washer, then the strut, then another plastic washer. Those washers tend to crumble with age, save any good ones between the two cars. Once struts are off, however, the hatch becomes dead weight, hard to open and hold up. A helper would be good here. Take struts off both top and bottom at same time and set aside, you don't want one poking up and breaking the glass.
I think I made the dumb move of putting the struts on the replacement hatch before attaching the hinges, thinking they'd hold it in place for me while I got screw holes lined up. So I really NEEDED that guy to help me, the struts were pushing the hatch all over the place. A prop I brought along, made out of three chunks of 2x4, was no help at all.
As I said, hang hatch on car and hook up struts before splicing the wires.
Finally, grab anything off your old hatch that might come in handy, lock cylinder as I said but also the lenses, license plate lights, latch strike, etc.
posted by 70.105.247...
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