I was wondering what other owners of 1960 chevy impalas or bel aires with shaved trunk locks did concerning opening their trunks? I want to shave mine but I'm trying to figure out what to do about the latch. I already know about putting a solenoid on it but I want to see How it was done. I was thinking about flipping the latching mechanisim over and putting the striker on the trunk then putting the latch on the body with some kind of a bell crank to manually operate the latch with a cable or something. What are your Ideas. I only want to do this once.
with a cable couldn't you leave the latch and striker in stock place. you could run the cable inside the hinge arm and then under a trim panel or something. good luck.
I used a trunk latch solenoid from a late '80s or early '90s Buick Roadmaster to operate the stock latch on Ozelle the '55 Ford. That was what I found that would adapt easily, I'm sure there are other trunk solenoids out there that will work just as well. Go to your friendly local junkyard and do some looking. A push-button starter switch mounted out of sight works fine for activating the solenoid. Just had to drill a couple of holes into the inner structure of the trunk lid to mount the solenoid and bend up a linkage out of 1/8" steel rod from the hardware store. Cheap and easy.
i used a latch out of a early 90s cutlas cierra then just wired a cable down thruw the frenched licence plate, ask Hollywqqd for pictures he has the car now..jones
the main problem I have is trying to make something that would be strong enough to turn the lock mechanism and be thin enough to fit in the groove that the stock tumblers blade fit in so it will open the trunk. Most fords seem to have latches that accomodate solenoids being installed pretty easy but my chevy doesn't. I'm going to pull the mechansim completely out of the trunk lid and see if there might be something I could modify in it to accept a cable Instead of trying to make something that will turn the little sloted factory piece.
I've taken out some GM latches and inside of them I've found a trip catch finger that if you pull this back about 1/4" to 3/8" then the latch will unlock and you do not have to do any twisting of the tumbler and it's assembly. You should hopefully then be able to drill a hole in this arm to attach the end of a cable to and then attach it to a solenoid. I've also installed interior trunk releases and for these I've taken the handle assembly out of the donor vehicles driver's door sill next to the seat track, pulled out the cable assembly running back to the back seat area, then up and into the trunk lid and then after pulling out the center flex cable (basically a bicycle brake type of cabling) and then fitting the length and shortening it if needed on the new install, reinstalled the inside cable and then attached the end to the trip arm on the trunk latch assembly. I've also bought the bicycle type of slack adjusters to where when the cable from use starts stretching, you can tighten up the slack more easily than resetting the cable end inside the trunk latch assembly. Here is a link to some shots of some work I did on a customer's car back in 2008. It's mostly the inside trunk release (and gas door release) assembly but if you look throught the album, there may be some shots of the trunk latch and the modified door latches to make them work with solenoids: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/562713425kMeNQe?start=144 http://good-times.webshots.com/album/562713425kMeNQe?start=156 http://good-times.webshots.com/album/562713425kMeNQe?start=180 http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2377091740060464735bmDSUH Jim
The Jalopy Journal
