Deck door not latching

[hafcanadian]

Just an advisory post. Our ‘97 Limited’s rear deck door for several years wouldn’t fully latch on the driver’s side. If I failed to remember to make an extra bodily push on that door corner, I might get into the car a few days later and find a dead battery from the courtesy lamp being on and unnoticed. I’d tried to sort out the problem by lubing latches, but thinking it was hinge misalignment up top, I finally took it to my mechanic.

He loosened the latch pin on that left side and slightly moved it rearward. We thought that would do it by letting the latch hook more fully envelop the pin and draw it fully in, because it likely was bouncing off the pin rather than grabbing it fully. It seemed to work for a week or two, but then it began acting up again. Having watched how he’d fiddled the pin, I studied it carefully one day, and compared it to the pin on the right side of the opening. There was the very slightest difference in pin position up and down. We’d thought slamming the door for 26 years had kicked the pin forward, but my inspection hinted it had been actually bumped down instead.

So I loosened the pin as the mechanic had but slid it UP a 32nd of an inch, and tightened it. I haven’t had to muscle the left deck corner latched for 8 months now. So if you run into this issue and can’t resolve it, it may need nothing more than moving a latch pin up a smidge.

Thanks to DintDobbs and others here who advised me on another thread last November.

 

[C420sailor]

Yeah, getting that nader bolt in the right position can be a *****.