Adjusting the boot lid.

[grand-one]

Just wondering if anyone knows how to adjust the boot lid on a 1995 Chimaera. My car had the earlier style boot lid with the larger silver hinges but the boot sits higher on the side with the gas strut than the other side. Is there s way to adjust the boot height or angle it sits at? Thanks in advance.

[shake n bake]

Kind of a standard feature really bud.
Unless anyone knows any magic??

[NZ fan]

You can put some washers under the arm that comes off the hinge. There is one central countersunk Allen head cap screw to undo. You will need 8mm washers not sure how many you can put in there before the arm will foul the bottom of the hinge but my car has one washer on the r/h side and none on the left. Be careful if you undo this bolt as the boot lid will have a mind of its own and can easily damage itself or the car.

[NZ fan]

Got the hinges off mine at the mo so did a test run. This is with one washer looks like you could safely get two possibly three in there.

[ukdj]

You can also adjust the striker/lock to pull down tighter which may sort the high side, but you'll then need to pack the other side with a washer or two on top of the bar that attaches to the boot lid to raise it up and bring it level.

Get yourself in the boot with a torch and when the lid shuts you can see where it is proud and what may be causing it, my sons boot lid took a day of constant fettling caused by a high sitting rubber boot seal.

Try taking the gas strut off and see if the shut line is any better, the gas strut may be holding the lid up slightly higher than its natural position.

If so you can get a less powerful strut that may not push the lid up so much, SGS do an adjustable pressure strut which may help in getting the correct setting.

it really is a pain but it just requires fettling of all the hinges/lock/striker/strut/rubber seal until you find the best alignment.

Edited by ukdj on Sunday 13th September 08:03

[grand-one]

Thank you for the hints and tips, will try and get an hour in the garage to fiddle around with the lock and the gas strut to see what effect it has!

[ChimpOnGas]

Great tips in this thread, the only thing I'll add is to check the ally bar on your hinge is straight & true.

I bent mine slightly when I accidentally closed the boot lid with the fuel cap still off and resting where I'd left it in the boot gutter.

I can clearly see how my stupid action of closing the boot onto the filler cap tweaked the ally bar part of hinge as it's now bent slightly and causing the boot lid to sit a bit high at the rear edge.

Just another one of those little jobs for me to look at over the winter, TBH it looks pretty straightforward rectify to me.

Definitely worth a look on your car to see how straight and true your hinge bars are, it's very possible someone in the past made the same careless mistake of closing the boot lid onto the removed fuel cap.

[grand-one]

Got out in the garage for 30 minutes today and found the striker bar on the inside of the boot lid. Loosened the bolts and changed the height of the striker bar, tightened it all back up and with a bit of adjustment now have a flat, level, and flush fitting boot lid - sorted!

Also noticed that there is a key barrel for the ignition key in the boot that can open the drivers door, but the plastic pivot that hold the cable has snapped. Any ideas where to source a new one?

[N7GTX]

Do you mean the white plastic part in this picture?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/380976639265?adgrou...

Try Autovaux: http://www.autovaux.co.uk/

Or a scrapyard with an old Cavalier/Omega/Carlton maybe.