Hatch Troubles

[nianguaus]

Ok, so a few weeks ago, I went out and bought some tail light covers. I get them put on, and I go to shut the hatch, but when I did, it wouldn't latch. So I stood there for awhile closing it softly, hard, just pushing down on it, nothing worked. I finally slammed it, and it latched. It stayed latched until about a week ago, when I opened it up to look at it. I read on here that I should have had a striker bushing, which I didn't, so I got one from Autozone. It still wouldn't shut. After that, I tried aligning the lock to the striker pin, and vice versa, and yet it still wont latch. After a little bit more messing around, I found that I was missing two screws right below the striker pin, so I replaced those. After some more tinkering, I finally got it to latch, but when I drive around, the hatch will pop open. Should I buy another entire latch assembly, or would this one work with some more messing around with it?

Any ideas?

 

[Bearded Forever]

My hood latch wouldn't close the way you describe. WD-40 cured that.

 

[kiddiccarus]

I have had issues with my hatch also, I would be driving and I would hear an anoying, constant squeeking at first I applied wd-40, graphite, and grease but none worked so I replaced the shocks for the hatch and it stoped for a while but the real cause was from the striker not being screwed in all of the way so I tightened it down and it stoped for six months but now the noise is back. So I am thinking of replacing the whole striker this time to see if that will work.

 

[Emysterio]

I been having troubles keeping mine latched, gonna put some WD 40 on it. I'm planning on getting another one anyways though because mine is in such horrible shape.

 

[CruzNlife1]

here I wrote a tech article on that a long time ago... Here it is....

http://www.geocities.com/cruznlife1/strikerfix.html

 

[Dr_EluSivE]

Ok, so a few weeks ago, I went out and bought some tail light covers. I get them put on, and I go to shut the hatch, but when I did, it wouldn't latch. So I stood there for awhile closing it softly, hard, just pushing down on it, nothing worked. I finally slammed it, and it latched. It stayed latched until about a week ago, when I opened it up to look at it. I read on here that I should have had a striker bushing, which I didn't, so I got one from Autozone. It still wouldn't shut. After that, I tried aligning the lock to the striker pin, and vice versa, and yet it still wont latch. After a little bit more messing around, I found that I was missing two screws right below the striker pin, so I replaced those. After some more tinkering, I finally got it to latch, but when I drive around, the hatch will pop open. Should I buy another entire latch assembly, or would this one work with some more messing around with it?

Any ideas?

what year is the stang? if it has a power latch release then you may not want to replace it. I have heard the power operated latches are difficult to find. My guess is A) the bushing was the wrong one B) the alignment is off on the striker, or c) the weather stripping to too worn out to keep the hatch up enough to latch properly. I had this problem with my car. I replaced the bushing, cleaned the latch, adjusted it, and havent had a problem since.

Dr.

 

[nianguaus]

what year is the stang? if it has a power latch release then you may not want to replace it. I have heard the power operated latches are difficult to find. My guess is A) the bushing was the wrong one B) the alignment is off on the striker, or c) the weather stripping to too worn out to keep the hatch up enough to latch properly. I had this problem with my car. I replaced the bushing, cleaned the latch, adjusted it, and havent had a problem since.

Dr.

It's an '89, and it does have the remote latch release. I found one in a junkyard that I'm going to pick up tomorrow. The bushings were the ones in the help section of Autozone, the same ones as those in the link a couple posts above. I've cleaned the latch, and lubricated it, lined it up right, yet it would still either not close, or I could easily pull up on it, and it would unlatch.