Ok, not bad mechanically but I'm clueless w electrical. I bought a trunk release set up for my 73 delta 88 convertible. I understand it goes in the glove box but I have no idea how or where to run the cables or how to wire. Do I need new fuse in the block? Any help would be much appreciated. I have a fisher body shop manual and the 73 olds service manual but not sure it can help. Thanks! Mike

 

I once put the same thing in a '75 Delta 88, and the job is not difficult at all.

Something like this only draws power for the briefest of moments, when you push the button momentarily to release the trunk. If there's anything that will not tax the electrical system in a car, it would be something like this. Any source of power will do.

There is no particular place where you need to run the wire from the glove-box to the deck lid latch. It is just a single wire as the return wire is just the grounding of the mechanism to the car's body. In my case, I just ran mine around the edge of the floor under the sill plates, under the rear seat into the trunk compartment, and around the edge of the trunk compartment to the trunk latch area where the mechanism was installed.

For power, as I recall I just tapped into an always-on power source, such as the wire for the electric clock. Even if your car doesn't have a clock, the wire for it might be there behind the dash where the clock would be but just tucked out of the way unused. If there is no wire, run one yourself and tap into the wire for the glove box light.

I also have the '73 chassis and body service manuals. The electric trunk release is mentioned briefly on page 7-5 and is pictured on page 7-6 of the Fisher Body manual. Installation of the electric release solenoid couldn't be easier as it just bolts onto the existing lock using two the lock's mounting bolts. The diagram on page 7-6 shows this in detail.

The wiring diagram in the chassis manual shows that the power for the trunk release comes from tapping into the same circuit and wiring that attaches to the glove box light, clock, and map courtesy lamp, all of which have always-on power. This is on page 12-6, Figure 12-10.

As far as where to mount the button, look on page 12A-13, Figure 12A-31 in the chassis manual. The deck lid release location is shown there. It mounts in a hole that is probably filled with some kind of a push-out like an electrical box would have. It goes just above the glove box lamp switch. If there is no push-out, measure the diameter of the button and drill a hole of the appropriate size. As I recall, when I put the one in my '75, I didn't need to drill any holes as the space for the button was already there.

Don't be too quick to discount the utility of these service manuals. They might not be the best-indexed books ever written, but everything I've ever needed to find I've found by just looking around in them long enough.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you have to run "cables." There are no cables in these units. There is just a single wire. A solenoid is what you're actually attaching to the trunk lock, and all you're rigging up is a way to get power to it. It releases the lock when you push the button.

The only thing that might have cables is if your trunk lid had one of those "pull-down" trunk lid mechanisms that were usually found on Cadillacs. On those, you never slammed the trunk lid. You just closed it gently until it latched, and then the mechanism would pull the lid down the last inch or so until it was fully closed. But I don't think you're talking about this. If you are, there are diagrams for this as well in the body manual.