by Keith and Terri Gerhard
Here’s a small tip that I found out as I started upgradingthe body on Terri’s new 86 Fiero Coupe. You don’t realize how much youmiss a power deck lid release until you don’t have one. This is one ofthe easier upgrades you can do since GM takes the cheap way out and makesall of their cars with the wiring already in place, which is good for us.Again as with most modifications you can do this several ways:
The first choice is the best, since you get the wiring harness that’sbuilt into the deck lid. All you have to do is bolt up the deck lid andhook up the wiring. We’ll get into the wiring issue later.
The second choice is to unbolt the whole latch assembly (2 10mm bolts)and switch it out with a power latch assembly. If you need to change thelock for some reason now is the time to do it. When the latch is removedall you have to do is remove the two Philips screws from the plate that’sbehind the latch and pull out the plate, which holds in the lock cylinder.Pull the lock out through the latch side.
The last choice is to take the solenoid itself and bolt it up to yourexisting latch. First you’ll have to pop out a small knockout plate onyour latch and then bolt up the solenoid, which is only attached with onebolt.
The wiring is the next thing. All Fieros should have a pigtail hangingout of a wiring harness below the right or left deck lid hinge. You hookthis pigtail up to the harness coming out of either the left or right sideof the deck lid (if it’s a power deck lid). I found that some 84’s and85’s have a small one wire hook-up coming out of the left side and the86’s on up seem to have a four wire plug coming out of the right side.If you don’t have a deck lid with a harness than you have to make one.The solenoids only need one wire that’s hot and the ground it gets fromthe latch when it contacts the body.
In fact, some of the cars I’ve donewith heavy spoilers or wings sometimes have needed a separate ground wiredto it since it doesn’t always make contact properly. The switch is theeasiest part since you just bolt up a release switch into the instrumentcluster and hook up the wires, which are already there. The last thing isto find the pigtail under the dash, above your right knee. It should be athree-wire pigtail and you’ll need to plug in a relay.
On Terri’s Fiero, which we call Blackie, Iactually did it two ways. First I had hooked up a non-power deck lid witha mustang spoiler. I took a solenoid I had, removed the knockout plate andbolted it to my old latch. Then I had to make a wire harness and usedwiretaps to hook it into the pigtail. Next I just hooked up the switch andplugged in the relay. Because of the weight of the spoiler I had to hookup that separate ground wire I talked about. About a week later I got aknock off Fiero GT wing. I had an extra 85 GT deck lid so I bolted that upwith the wing. This was a power deck lid but being an 85 it had the wirecoming out of the left side, so I had to run that to the right side wheremy connector was. I had to swap out the locks so I could keep my key, butnow I can open the deck lid with a push of a button!