308 decklid releases

There's a secondary release behind the drivers seat, on the firewall.

Give that one a pull and see what happens. Try re-latching the left side 1st though.

 

Have you tried with a helper. One person doing the release lever. The other jiggling the decklid.

 

Try pressing the lid down hard while someone pulls the leaver. Then lift. try using both cables.

 

Did you get tour deck lid open? I have always wondered how you would get it open if the cable broke.

Good luck
Stacy

 

Boy do I feel sorry for you! OK there's worse things in the world than not being able to get your ferrari decklid open, but heck this a ferrari technical site. Ain't we got any experts here???

I've just been out to look at mine. The right one is driven off the left one as I'm sure you know. Did you try what Michael Collins suggested? By pressing down hard on the lid you'd be freeing the catch up so it should open easiest. If it doesn't then presumably the left one just isn't pulling enough.

Sorry not to be able to help.

 

check the archives on this on the old F-chat site. I recall a mechanic saying the "last resort" is to knock out either the turn signal or brake light housing and go in from there. About $150 or so to replace....don't remember if you have to break one on each side or not....

Either way, not a fun proposition.

 

Any access from underneath, or via the side(removing a wheel well)

 

I am not sure if all 308's have this but there is a hole in the rear firewall of mine located at the right rear, upper corner area. It's about 1.5" in diameter and is currently plugged. I thought maybe it was used for part of the charcol cannister/raw fume recovery system. That would be one approach if I ran into the same problem.

Another approach I would take as a last resort is to take out the inner fender and drill a 1 or 2" hole in the trunk wall/aft wheel well bulk head with a hole saw. You should be able to get it from there. They make rubber block off plugs to fit many sizes so pick your hole size to accomodate one of these. Cheaper than busting a tailight.

Inspecting another 308 should give you insight as to where exactly to drill the hole and what part of the latch to snag.

Let us know what you come up with.

 

Scroll to the bottom of the Fchat home page and you will find a link to the old site.

 

there's no way to get into the cargo area from outside normally.

Just to clarify, the main cable stretches from the lever in the driver door to the passenger side deck lid release latch. The drivers side deck lid latch clamps onto the cable as it goes by.

the backup release cable only goes to the drivers side deck lid latch. if the main cable is not taut between the two deck lid latches, then you have the unfortunate scenario where the drivers side latch may "bottom out" and prevent the cable from moving far enough for the other latch to release.

if pulling the backup release cable as hard as you can doesn't work, then you only have a couple options that I can see.

If you think the clamping of the main cable at the drivers side latch is loose enough, you can remove the lever in the door jamb and try pulling it with excessive force to see if you can slip the cable in the clamping collar.

if that doesn't work (and you destroy the cable end in the process), then you probably have to shatter the brake light on the passenger side so you can reach in and release the latch.

trying to drill into the cargo area would only be an option if there wasn't a ton of carpeting and insulation all over the place. on my 328, it looks like it would be impossible due to a hard carpeted shell that is covering the latches....you'd have to get that out of the way, which would require a pretty big hole.

you definitely have my condolences. don't let this discourage you from working on the car in the future!

 

I will inspect my '78 when I get home tonight (4:00p.m. PDLT) and see if I can find an answer to your dilema.

 

I am hoping that being a 288 rebody that the car may not have all of the insulation and carpeting......................

Either way, it makes me want to look at preventative measures on my own.

 

Nice looking rebody, better than most that I have seen. Is the wheel base still stock? The car appears to be a GTB but the 'A' pillars are black like a GTS. I think they are red on the 288 too. Am I mistaken?

If all else fails one could cut a section out of the trunk floor to access the latch. Weld in new metal, replace the insulation, a piece of new carpet and you are good to go. A big hassle but no body damage and no destruction to limited resource parts.

 

Okay, I'm back.
Here are shots of my '78 GTS. I don't know if the carpet has been renewed on this car but you can see by the cut that the latch is exposed as well as part of the cable.

The last picture shows the 'Mystery Hole' in the rearbulk head just outboard of the header tank. It goes clear through to the carpet if unplugged. The latch is 4" OUTBOARD from this hole.

Now, if one could just grab the cable from that hole the angle would be perfect to give it a little tug. Makes me think that maybe that is why the hole is there in my car...........................

Another thought is one could reach in with a long extension and a 'wobbly' socket and unbolt the latch from the body saving a kink in the cable! Access to the hole in the bulkhead could be via the wheel well of course.
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After some experimentation I found that I could trip the latch by inserting a narrow, blade tipped screwdriver into the lower half of the hole in the aft side of the latch. The screwdriver must be inserted fairly level with the TIP at an angle towards the OUTBOARD side of the latch and the HANDLE INBOARD, then move the HANDLE of the screwdriver from INBOARD TO OUTBOARD and it pops right open.

Thats about all I can come up with.

The first picture shows the latch closed.
In the second picture you can see the tab inside the hole next to the screwdriver tip.
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Well? Any luck?

 

Before you take out the taillight you may want to consider removing the licence plate and cut out a section so you can get your arm in the trunk and release the latch. Then take the piece that you cut out and build a picture frame to install in the trunk . Then install the cutout piece to the frame and put on the licence plate and all is covered. My 2c

 

Tesseract, (=4 dimesional cube, Cool.)

"............spent time on a FERRARI GUY I don't know."

I really think there is a way to do this without hacking your car to bits.
Good luck.