Here are the instructions for motorizing your trunk lid or any other amp racks, panels, etc.

Use common sense. Here is the basic idea to perform the motorization with the secrets I used in my car; it does not include every minor detail in the process. If you are not electronically inclined, then do not attempt this procedure. Take this one step at a time so you don't get confused hooking all these wires up. Use solder and heatshrink!

Tools and Supplies:
6” Linear Actuator at least 75lbs load rated from eBay or Select Products
2 Relays ordinary SPST at any hardware store
Wire – 16 gauge and 12 gauge preferably
2 Momentary switches from Radio Shack
Fuses
Turnbuckle
Angle Iron
Assortment of nylock nuts and bolts.

Instructions:
1. Remove your stock spring/torsion bars which propel the trunk lid open. **Use extreme care. These can severely injure you when removing them.
2. Cut a piece of angle iron roughly 3” long and use it as a mounting bracket to mount the linear actuator to the inner-most strut tower bolt. The actuator needs to be able to pivot left to right on the strut tower bolt; it also needs to be free to pivot up and down while mounted to the angle iron. So do not snug the nuts and bolts, use lock-tite to keep them from loosening over time.





3. The most critical part of making this work correctly is finding the right pivot point on the arm of the trunk lid. You want to select the point which allows the trunk to close all the way and then open the maximum amount possible. This takes trial and error, but from the photo you should be able to get a close idea of where to start.



4. Attach a turnbuckle to the end of the actuator and bolt it to the point on the arm of the trunk lid you found to work the best. I assembled bolt-washer-turnbuckle-washer-oversized nut as a spacer-washer-arm of trunk lid-washer-nylock nut. Over time you will be able to fine tune how the trunk lid opens and closes by adjusting the turnbuckle by quarter turns. Once it is dialed in you may want to weld it because it will continually change itself with the opening and closing motion.


Turnbuckle



5. Next step is to wire the actuator. Since my battery for all auxiliary functions is located in the trunk, I wired my switches as negative triggers. The easiest way to do this is to use a DEI 451M door lock relay pack, but here is how to wire up just 2 ordinary relays. Solder all connections.*


SPST Relay





6. Figure out where you want your switches mounted in the dash.
a. Ground 2 wires.
b. Run one wire to one momentary switch, run the other wire to the other momentary switch.
c. Run one wire out of each switch and back to the trunk.


1. Relay number 1 will be the “UP” relay. Label it accordingly.
2. Take one of the wires coming from your momentary switch up front and connect it to 85.
3. Wire 86 and 87 to 12 volts but make sure they are fused. 15 amp should do depending on your actuator.
4. Wire 87a to a clean, bare metal, ground.
5. Wire 30 to the red lead on the linear actuator.


a. Relay number 2 will be the “DOWN” relay.
b. Take the other wire coming from your momentary switch up front and connect it to 85 on this relay.
c. Wire 86 and 87 to 12 volts but make sure they are fused. 15 amp should do depending on your actuator.
d. Wire 87a to a clean, bare metal, ground.
e. Wire 30 to the black lead on the linear actuator.


(Intellectual Property of Mennitti)

Originally I used 2 actuators; one on each arm of the trunk. This is overkill; one works much smoother because it does not need to compete with the other.



*Anyone who uses this tutorial but refuses to solder their connections will be doomed to installers’ hell when they die. Here you will be forced to install Bulldog remote car starters without a security bypass for all eternity on Impalas that reek of cigarette smoke, have leaking floor boards, remains of shattered glass under the carpets, in 20 degree weather and no Kerosene for the heater, for men who use their driver’s seats as Kleenexes when they drive.


Please do not post comments. The purpose of this thread is for people to research. They are not going to want to sort through several pages to find relevant information pertaining to this installation. If you have a question about something that is unclear please email me. If need be, I will update the information to clarify.



Check out my other How To’s: Installing a Remote Car Starter, Building custom trunk panels, Motorizing your trunk lid, Adding/Relocating a battery to your trunk, Going from 9005/9006 to 9007 bulbs (converting your headlights into 2K with OEM functions), etc.







^CLICK ME TO SEE HOW I BUILT EVERYTHING^ How To in Interior Forum

Good work Sticky!!!

Did you just call him Stickey?

good tutorial PICS ARE WAY TO SMALL TO SEE WHAT U DID!!

thanks












GOT ECOTEC?

The turnbuckles actually face backward to the front of the car as the actuator extends.



This photo is of the actuator fully extended. You can see the stock black wire loom pulled off of the driver's side trunk lid arm to take the pic.



All photos are at photobucket Photobucket Mennitti How Tos






^CLICK ME TO SEE HOW I BUILT EVERYTHING^ How To in Interior Forum

I mainly just read and barely EVER post but you're a @!#$ genius! Good tutorial and nice to see someone actually contributing to the site instead of bashing.

Sticky?

AWESOME!!!. I've been wanting to do this for a while now. With the pro stock and shaved trunk the stock springs dont cut it anymore.

Minnitti, would you mind posting more pictures and elaborate a little more on the turnbuckle? I'm doing this right now, but the trunk won't open nearly as much I'd like it to.
A video clip would be great, since it's so easy to post those now.

Thanks

Great how-to. I'm now assessing if/how it could be modified to work in a 3rd gen convertible. That's a challenging little project for a number of reasons.

First, the trunk arm setup and strut tower bolt access in those cars is signicantly different than the coupe/sedan variant shown here. That's because the modifications GM had to make to accomodate a folding top involved both narrowing and lowering the height of the inner trunk. The latter ended removing some of the space required for the standard lid hinges and lifts, so the verts got a unique version that is both smaller and set further away from the strut towers (closer to the trunk opening). I'll see if I can take/post some pictures to illustrate.

Another complication is the fact that for security reasons the verts don't have a drivers side cable trunk latch release. Instead, there's a solenoid that unlocks it, and that (as factory wired) can only be activated by the OEM remote. I suspect the ideal mod of this project for a vert would involve reworking the actuator and solenoid wiring so that both are run by a logic circuit activated by the remote. The ideal version of that would allow programming of a "cycled" sequence, where each push of the remote trunk button would execute a defined set of events (and tell the program to move on to the next sequence at the next button push).

For this mod, that logic sequence could be pretty simple: first button push on remote would result in (a) solenoid firing then actuator going into "up" mode. The next button push would result in actuator going into "down" mode. Next button push would be sequence "a" again, etc. This is precisely how the rear power liftgate sequence on my wife's Chrysler Pacifica works.

Okay, I think I kinda got an idea of what I was missing.
Do the linear actuators (more or less) extend STRAIGHT back? Like at 180º to the car?

the actuaters are an in and out. u have a shaft and the rod comes out of it X amount of inches and then back in the same amount.


for the convertible owner youlle just have to play with your mounting location for it to work, might not work on the strut mount u may have to find a diffrent mounting point. same goes for you brad, moving the location of where the arm attaches to the trunk lid will effect how far it opens and closes.


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