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Trunk Key Delete....

daveSanborn

Active Member
When building my sons car a couple years ago, he wanted to delete the keyed opening and go with an electric popper to unlock the trunk latch. The downside to this is when the battery is relocated to the trunk and it mysteriously goes dead.

How to unlock the trunk?

I looked at the latch the other night and came up with a neat little trick.....

You know how if you stick a screwdriver into the slot of the trunk latch and turn it the mechanism will unlock? I made a small "L" shaped lever and inserted it into the rear side of the latch. To hold the "L" into the latch mechanism I drilled a small hole into one end of the "L" and cotter pinned it. On the other leg of the "L" I drilled another small hole and attached an 8" piece of wire routed downward and out through the rear of the car terminating up under the rear bumper. In the event that the battery ever goes dead again, to open the trunk all you have to do is reach up under the bumper and pull downward on the wire... the "L" rotates and the latch pops open.
 
dammit dave, where were you and your good idea a year ago :expl

i bought an electric one and ended up going with a cable release because of that very issue.

great idea :toot
 
ended up going with a cable release

Like the factory one? That's what we were trying to avoid doing. Now that it's done, I'm amazed at how simple the solution was. The only downside is that now anyone can access the trunk (if they know that the wire is up under the bumper).
 
"daveSanborn" said:
Like the factory one? That's what we were trying to avoid doing. Now that it's done, I'm amazed at how simple the solution was. The only downside is that now anyone can access the trunk (if they know that the wire is up under the bumper).

Any Pics Dave?
 
"daveSanborn" said:
Like the factory one? That's what we were trying to avoid doing. Now that it's done, I'm amazed at how simple the solution was. The only downside is that now anyone can access the trunk (if they know that the wire is up under the bumper).

Yeah, which i really didn't want to use because it's so easy to break inside these cars to begin with, and with the manual ones they have instant access to the trunk.
 
Just wait until the wire corrodes to dust and then the battery dies...
 
"joesgt281" said:
and in case anybody needs one, I have a brand new electric trunk release for a 67/68


I don't "need" one but I very much like the idea and if you have one at the right price then It might just be mine.....You have a PM
 
"daveSanborn" said:
When building my sons car a couple years ago, he wanted to delete the keyed opening and go with an electric popper to unlock the trunk latch. The downside to this is when the battery is relocated to the trunk and it mysteriously goes dead.

How to unlock the trunk?

hey Dave i got alot of ideas from you from vmf and the e forums , so i thought i would pitch in here,

i did the key delete also but i didnt move my gas filler from the rear, i have a dummy bolt head there and it is attached to the wire, if my battery dies i can just remove the gas cap and pull the dummy bolt and trunk pops open

luckily i did this since my trunk popper lasted all of a week,

i also mounted a kill switch , and if the battery dies this is also a good jump off point
 
I've been negligent in getting the picture(s) of the electric "over-ride" feature that we installed, but as far as the electric "popper" goes, one can be obtained locally usually at the local salvage yard. Ford used an identical trunk latch mechanism as found on the classic Mustangs on mid-80's LTDs (among others) with an electric solenoid attached. Installation is a breeze as the LTD latch is identical to the Mustangs other than a solenoid and a wire coming off of it. The latch grounds to the trunk latch support and the one-wire connection can be routed to the passenger compartment to a 12v source with a push button switch to activate it.

Where this idea can be a problem is when the battery is trunk mounted and the battery goes dead. You have "back" energize the electrical system in order to get the trunk open to recharge the battery.
 
"daveSanborn" said:
I've been negligent in getting the picture(s) of the electric "over-ride" feature that we installed, but as far as the electric "popper" goes, one can be obtained locally usually at the local salvage yard. Ford used an identical trunk latch mechanism as found on the classic Mustangs on mid-80's LTDs (among others) with an electric solenoid attached. Installation is a breeze as the LTD latch is identical to the Mustangs other than a solenoid and a wire coming off of it. The latch grounds to the trunk latch support and the one-wire connection can be routed to the passenger compartment to a 12v source with a push button switch to activate it.
I have one from a 75 T-Bird, sounds exactly the same.
 
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