I need a little help

[89RS_dude]

I have a 89 RS and my rear hatch is closing right. First of all the pull down motor is broken and wont grab it so i rigged it to where i turned in to just a latch down(i have to slam it down now) but it wont go down evenly. When your looking at it from the rear the left side goes down fine but the right wont go all the way down to wear its slanted. Water leaks in as a result and its really really annoying. Please help me out

[Benm109]

I think I can help.

The first thing you should do is fix the hatch so that you don't have to slam it down. All you have to do is remove the rear plastic piece that covers the hatch motor. Once you get that off, you will notice 3 large bolts that hold the hatch motor in place, and you'll also notice that the holes are elongated, so that you can adjust it up and down. Loosen the 3 bolts, raise the hatch motor up some, tighten the bolts down, and try closing the hatch. If it's still hard to close, raise the hatch motor up some more and retry. Keep adjusting it until the hatch closes easily, but still seals with the weatherstriping so it doesn't leak.

It's also a good idea to adjust the latch that's attached to the hatch that holds the rear hatch closed. You just have to remove the interior-colored plastic piece that covers the back of the rear hatch with 4 screws. Just loosen the 4 nuts that hold it on, adjust it so that it goes directly into the hatch motor when the hatch is closed, and try closing and opening the rear hatch to see if it's any better.

Don't forget to lube the hinges, hatch struts (what holds the hatch up), and the movable hatch motor parts with some white lithium grease or oil, too, that should help a little.

Does the hatch feel as though it's heavier on one side than the other, by any chance? A lot of times one hatch strut will go bad, while the other is still good, and the hatch will feel lopesided and might not close properly. If this seems like your problem, than you can just get new ones at any auto parts store.


If your problem still exists, then you need to adjust the whole hatch assembly, but luckily it's not that hard.

To adjust the rear hatch, (don't forget a friend to help, the rear hatch is pretty heavy!) just remove the plastic piece towards the rear of the hatch (should be interior color with 4 screws), then remove the side runner things (should be black) that holds the metal trim piece that runs all around the edge of the hatch glass (2 screws on each side). Remove the hatch struts from the hatch (1 bolt on each side, and have a friend help you hold it cuz' it's pretty heavy). After you do this, you will see 8 13mm nuts that were under the interior-colored plastic piece. With the hatch glass supported (support the glass on the side with something like pillows), loosen the 8 13mm nuts until they are pretty loose. Now you should be able to slide the rear body panel (the piece of the rear hatch that is body-colored, what the spoiler bolts to) part attached to the hatch glass in and out a little. Adjust it to where you want it, tighten down the nuts, tighten down the hatch metal trim piece, put the hatch struts back on, and test it. If it's good, just put the plastic interior-colored piece back on and your done, if it's still off, repeat the steps until it's right. It took me some time to get mine right, but it's well worth it.


I know that this is a lot of material, but of these things are hard to do, nor does it take a lot of time. Heck, I figured out how to do most of this stuff myself, so it can't be too hard . I can go into more detail if necessary, just post or PM me. Good luck.

[CLWILSON]

You can get all of the parts to fix your hatch motor from several place on the internet, one is ebay.

Another one that I ordered parts for mine from was:

http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/miscellaneous

When I got my car the hatch motor was broke and the previous owner had used screws to hold the assembly in place so that you has to slam it. It looked like it was tight, but it still leaked. It hasn't leaked since I fixed it.