Hi everyone,

recently i rear ended a pole !
and yesterday i went to get a boot lid so i can close the thing because it was raining bad the other day and water was getting in!!!

now i have a problem!
i put the boot lid yesterday but the problem is its not alligning with lock and the rear lights!

well the right one is but not the left one!

and the gap between the boot lid and the bosy is weird !
it's almost nothing on the right and 1 cm apart on the left!!!

i have tried a millions things and i dont even know what's touching and not!!!

also can i drive a car with the rear bumper out (there is only the rear bar to protect me??? (which is a piece of crap) or is it illegal???


help urgent help !

Gday there!

There are a few ways of doing minor adjustments to the boot lit and lock alignment, however if it is really a bad fit perhaps you bought the wrong boot lid, or you damaged more than just the boot lid itself in your rear-ender.

For the minor adjustments; Boot alignment in the horizontal direction (the gaps left and right) is adjusted by the 4 bolts (2 each side) where the boot lid sits on the mechanical arms.

For the latch/lock, there are two bolts that you can loosen.

What I suggest is to align the horizontal direction by loosening the 4 bolts on the boot arms, aligning the gap so it is even, and then re-tightening the bolts. Then loosen the latch/lock striker (on the car not the boot), close the boot. This will align the latch striker to where it should be for the lock to work *very* carefully open the boot again being careful not to disturb the latch. Re-tighten and you have yourself a working boot again.

I had a rear-ender myself and was lucky that I only damaged the boot lid. 5-6 hour repair job and it was fixed. However, it is possible to damage the structure under the bumper which effectively 'drags in' the tail light sections and causes the rear-end to be out of alignment. If the minor adjustments available do not do the trick I would speculate this is the case.

Cheers,
Adam

hey cheers dude!

yeah i managaed to close the boot lid, but i think the rear bar also moved the side (left) section because when the boot closes the right one aligns but the left one got a 1 cm gap,

i've played with the 4 bolts a million times, there is nothing that can make that move horizontally, so im guessing i will have to allign the boot lid by doing something to the arms itself! by half a centimeter!!!!

now comes the dilemma!

the boot closes but it wont open!!!
i've tried to open it from the inside but it's so dark and in such an awkward position i can't move the latch, i was studying the locking system on the other boot and checking the damage and im thinking the section which holds the lights must have moved in or something!!!!



it's unbelievebale the amount of damage this thing caused, and the hit was so soft but damaged almost everythng in between!!!

What state are you in, you can drive with no rear bar.
If in Vic I would be happy to have a look if you want

Wow, sounds nasty. Depends how handy you are on your body repair but if some of the panels and the rear bar itself is out of alignment, I would be taking it to a body repair shop about now... They have the hydraulic equipment and would be able to do it very easily...

Mind you, unless it's an insurance job, it'll cost a fortune. When I rear-ended a tree my boot was damaged plus my rear bumper was smashed in not real nice. Got a quote $1200 to fix it :? Took off the rear bumper and knocked it out with a lump of wood and a small sledge hammer (almost can't tell now), and a 5-6 hour repair job to the boot and luckily it's all fine. $1200? hmmm, I think they saw me coming. I think you were going a bit quicker than me though to have pulled panels out of alignment!

Best of luck!

Adam

hi guys!
well i think i needed the help of my boss, well he played with cars and yesterday when i finifhed work, he checked the back and he hit this and that, well a lot of pulling and whatever he did !
and the boot opened wuite nicely, now the onyl problem is the alignemnt!

the horixontal ones looks quite alright, but the section where the light goes moved inside by like 1 cm or so!

so im kicking it from inside!
and when that's done i will be taking the rear support bar out!
and straightening that!

after that the bumper (half fixed it already) is going back on and i'll be done!!

or Mal i am in South Melbourne!

thanks for your help guys!!!


p.s and no way on hell i will be able to afford $1200 for a 10 YO car, and im a student with hardly any money, i'll rather do it myself, slowly, than spend the money and eat **** all for an undefined amount of time!!!