Piff

Console Trunk Release Temporary Disable Modification (Trunk Lock Mod)

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This one came from the Pointy board, but originally from a gent named Rod Roller from the Central Alabama Miata Society.

Link: http://www.miata.net/garage/techtrunk1.html

Well, I have joined the ranks of the trunk lock modders. The mod works perfectly. It'll be nice to know the stuff in my trunk (when I put anything in there) is secure from potential break in.

The procedure is simple enough, and all you have to do is grind away a small tab and voilĂ*, lockable trunk. HOWEVER, as I found out the hard way, there is NO room for error when grinding the tab away. If you go "too deep" (the instructions are vague about this), you're in for a world of pain. What happens is you'll either grind a hole in the side of the barrel, or you'll make the wall underneath so thin (what I did), that the first time you go to use the lock, that area of the wall will fail. The reason is that RIGHT under that tab that you're supposed to grind off is the spring well. The spring that snaps the key door shut (when you remove the key) is grounded in that well. If that wall fails, then everytime you insert the key, the spring will poke out the new hole and hang the lock up. After several turns (if you haven't figured out what went wrong), you'll start to score the inside of the barrel.

We tried a couple of different fixes including jamming a new piece of metal in the area, soldering the hole (too hard to get it to flow into the hole) and bending the spring, none of which worked. As I was not at my own house, I ended up removing the spring so I could put the car back together. The only drawback is that the door no longer snaps shut when the key is withdrawn. I will eventually take it out again and use some JB Weld to seal the hole.

Regards.

Updated 08-31-2010 at 09:38 AM by Piff

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