Junk in the Trunk

    When I go the car I quickly discovered the trunk was closed but not latched. It only stayed closed by it's own weight. If I wanted to be able to use the trunk effectively I had to address this. After inspecting the handle there was no lock cylinder in it. This would be right behind the hinged cover at the top of the handle.Luckily the rest of the mechanism was in tack.

First thing I had to do was flip the bar mounted on the trunk wall. This is just a metal bar the the latch on the lid grips when you close the lid. They mounted it upside down so that the lid would not catch and lock them out.

After I corrected that I found a bent bar I had laying around the garage and cut it so it would act as a sort of key as a temporary way to access the trunk once latched. Normally you could not do this. The mechanism has a theft prevention tab that blocks the part you need to push down to pop the latch. It was bent on mine and broke off when I attempted to straighten it. I will have to weld this back on.

Once I determined the trunk would work I had to decide on finding and replacing the lock cylinder or coming up with an alternative way to get in. After seeing some prices on ebay I went with an alternative. I ran a cable to the interior of the car so that I could pull a knob and pop the trunk.

Works great! This vid is a bit dark but you get the idea! Click the "V" top right to watch it.





    If you look quick you can see the cable running down the inside trunk lid. I want to paint this black so it doesn't stand out so much. As for the connection I decided pulling the bottom of the part you would normally push from the top would be easier on the cable so I drilled a small hole in the bottom and fed the cable through and put a little bend to secure it. then I used a hose clamp to secure the cable cover from sliding. I may add pictures of this late r if anyone needs to see how it works.