Boot lid not fitting - At all !

[woolley11]

I am rebuilding my Sprint ready (hopefully) for 50th.

I thought simple quick job yesterday to fit the boot latch and lock mechanism - how wrong !

I have had a new rear outer panel fitted as part of the resto but the inner panel was retained in situ so no movement of panel work there where the latch assembly is bolted in. The boot lid and latch was a used part of a scrapper which my paint guy got hold of - can't imagine boot lids/latches would have been different over the years. Mine is a 1974 car.

As I shut the boot (carefully), the boot latch (bolted to the boot lid) comes down and actually touches the inner panel and doesn't get anywhere near the latch bar bolted on the inner panel - I reckon its about 10 millimetres out - either the inner panel latch is set forward or the boot lid latch comes down 10 mil further back ?? - or a combination of 5mil each way.

I've adjusted the boot lid off the 4 hinge bolts, but the boot lid lines up with the rear quarters and got good panel gap so that can't be wrong. Its a mystery.

Has anyone had similar experience or is there something I've done wrong - school boy error sort of thing??

[cleverusername]

Just had a look at my spare bootlid and as far as I can see the latch will only locate in one position, can't see how you could have fitted it incorrectly. Are you sure you have the hinges correctly adjusted?

[woolley11]

My only thought since original post is whether the boot lid inner frame on the s/h boot lid is bent as the outer panel gaps line up.

There doesn’t seem to be any deformation though. I haven’t a spare boot lid to check but I’ll get a pic up tomorrow and see if there is any obvious signs.

[sprintchris]

I had a similar issue a few years back. I bought an immaculate boot lid from a breakers, took it off the car myself so knew there was no accident damage etc, had it painted, fitted it but could not get it to shut at all, tried adjusting it but in the end gave up.
I then refitted the original with a small dent, shut perfectly!
And I’ve never managed to figure out why.
I repaired and reused the original boot lid.
I do also have a similar issue with the offside rear door, second hand door, sits proud of the body on the trailing edge, tried different hinges, had a skilled old school panel beater try to align it and he gave up too.
Chris.

[woolley11]

I have the answer to this now.

The second hand bootlid was pushed in the centre, although not noticeable at all. Must have had accident damage at some point.

I took it off and bent/levered the lip back in to shape - I chipped some paint inside lid but it’ll touch up. I tried to do as evenly as possible.

Shuts fine now and don’t think anyone but me would know