How to close trunk after dead battery

[Jeff]

Howdy guys- it's been a while.

Recently, I had to remove the battery on my 97 SLS. While the battery was off, I had to get into my trunk. I popped the trunk with my key and of course, you can't close the trunk with no power...

SO- my question is- How do I get it to close once I put my new battery on this weekend? Should the trunk latch automatically raise itself once the juice hits it, or do I need to trick it somehow to get it to cycle back up?

Thanks once again-

Jeff

[Cadillac Jim]

In the eleven years I've had my 1997 Eldorado, I've never paid any attention to the trunk lock. Of course, I've had the battery out for replacement or for servicing the car many times. I've never opened the trunk with a dead battery, but the trunk pulldown is switch operated and shouldn't be affected. If you're concerned, get a 12V lantern battery and use it with alligator clips on your battery cables to pull down your trunk lid.

[Jeff]

The problem is that the latch never came up. It's still down in the 'locked' position. You know how when the you close the trunk, you click the trunk lid down, it sucks it down tight? Well, it's down and the lid is open. I've put power to it and hit the trunk release, but since the lid is not there, it won't come up.

[BodybyFisher]

When I had my car laid up for a month working on it, I opened my trunk and had a similar problem. It was open and I didnt want rain water getting into it, it had extended and as a result there was a big space.

I hotwired the pull down and put it where I needed the pulldown, pull off the connector, and connect 12v power to it, it will raise and lower depending upon the polarity if I recall. BE CAREFUL if you use the car battery of SPARKS and the CURRENT..

[Cadillac Jim]

I once shorted a battery that had been sitting on the garage floor for a year to see if it was dead. There was a stupendous blue-white flash and a dime-sized notch was vaporized in the large chrome-moly "lifetime guarantee" wrench. The garage was filled with a gray-white smoke of what becomes of vaporized metal when it cools.

That's why I remove my watch and rings when I work on the car, and disconnect the ground terminal first, and put it out of the way where it won't contact the battery terminal, before I touch the hot terminal. That way I never work on anything that has the battery behind it.

[BodybyFisher]

In the eleven years I've had my 1997 Eldorado, I've never paid any attention to the trunk lock. Of course, I've had the battery out for replacement or for servicing the car many times. I've never opened the trunk with a dead battery, but the trunk pulldown is switch operated and shouldn't be affected. If you're concerned, get a 12V lantern battery and use it with alligator clips on your battery cables to pull down your trunk lid.

I didn't read this before I posted my post above, you already nailed it, sorry

[BodybyFisher]

I once shorted a battery that had been sitting on the garage floor for a year to see if it was dead. There was a stupendous blue-white flash and a dime-sized notch was vaporized in the large chrome-moly "lifetime guarantee" wrench. The garage was filled with a gray-white smoke of what becomes of vaporized metal when it cools.

That's why I remove my watch and rings when I work on the car, and disconnect the ground terminal first, and put it out of the way where it won't contact the battery terminal, before I touch the hot terminal. That way I never work on anything that has the battery behind it.

Speaking of rings, my cousin got a serious burn when he completed the circuit and welded his wedding ring to the terminal and badly burned his finger a couple of years ago

[navion]

I once shorted a battery that had been sitting on the garage floor for a year to see if it was dead. There was a stupendous blue-white flash and a dime-sized notch was vaporized in the large chrome-moly "lifetime guarantee" wrench. The garage was filled with a gray-white smoke of what becomes of vaporized metal when it cools.

That's why I remove my watch and rings when I work on the car, and disconnect the ground terminal first, and put it out of the way where it won't contact the battery terminal, before I touch the hot terminal. That way I never work on anything that has the battery behind it.

Speaking of rings, my cousin got a serious burn when he completed the circuit and welded his wedding ring to the terminal and badly burned his finger a couple of years ago

I have been a mechanic most of my life. After I was married, my wife let me know that she wanted me to wear my ring while I was at work. I told her that in my kind of work it was dangerous to wear a ring. She was not very happy but said she understood. About a month later, there was an article in a trade journal about a fellow that got his ring caught between a battery hot terminal and ground. The ring got so hot that it actually cooked the flesh on the ring finger. The finger had to be amputated, as the blood vessels and nerves were destroyed.

I brought the article home and let my wife read it.

Another ring incident happened to me in Texas. A fellow worker had climbed onto the side of a dump truck. The truck bed had 2X10 boards along the top of the sides. When the worker went to jump down from the truck, his wedding ring caught on a roofing nail that had been driven into the board. I heard him yell so I went to see what was happening. When I came around the back of the truck, he was hanging there by his ring finger & almost passed out from the pain.

I grabbed his feet and held him up until he could get his finger unhooked. If he had weighed a little more, it would have pulled his finger off. As it was, the ER had to cut the ring off. after some micro surgery, skin grafts and about 6 months, he got some of the use back and a little of the feeling. He will be reminded of that incident every day for the rest of his life.

His wife used to insist that he wear his ring at all times. She has now relented, and now agrees that rings have no place in the work place.

Britt

[BodybyFisher]

I once shorted a battery that had been sitting on the garage floor for a year to see if it was dead. There was a stupendous blue-white flash and a dime-sized notch was vaporized in the large chrome-moly "lifetime guarantee" wrench. The garage was filled with a gray-white smoke of what becomes of vaporized metal when it cools.

That's why I remove my watch and rings when I work on the car, and disconnect the ground terminal first, and put it out of the way where it won't contact the battery terminal, before I touch the hot terminal. That way I never work on anything that has the battery behind it.

Speaking of rings, my cousin got a serious burn when he completed the circuit and welded his wedding ring to the terminal and badly burned his finger a couple of years ago

I have been a mechanic most of my life. After I was married, my wife let me know that she wanted me to wear my ring while I was at work. I told her that in my kind of work it was dangerous to wear a ring. She was not very happy but said she understood. About a month later, there was an article in a trade journal about a fellow that got his ring caught between a battery hot terminal and ground. The ring got so hot that it actually cooked the flesh on the ring finger. The finger had to be amputated, as the blood vessels and nerves were destroyed.

I brought the article home and let my wife read it.

Another ring incident happened to me in Texas. A fellow worker had climbed onto the side of a dump truck. The truck bed had 2X10 boards along the top of the sides. When the worker went to jump down from the truck, his wedding ring caught on a roofing nail that had been driven into the board. I heard him yell so I went to see what was happening. When I came around the back of the truck, he was hanging there by his ring finger & almost passed out from the pain.

I grabbed his feet and held him up until he could get his finger unhooked. If he had weighed a little more, it would have pulled his finger off. As it was, the ER had to cut the ring off. after some micro surgery, skin grafts and about 6 months, he got some of the use back and a little of the feeling. He will be reminded of that incident every day for the rest of his life.

His wife used to insist that he wear his ring at all times. She has now relented, and now agrees that rings have no place in the work place.

Britt

My cousin was very lucky, I saw his finger a couple of months later and he was badly scarred.

Relative what you said about jumping off a truck, I heard about that happening twice, while I worked in Sun Ship Building & Drydock, they lost their fingers.

When I was in college, my friend went to dunk a basketball and caught his ring on the rim and tore his finger badly..

Rings are very dangerous.

[winterset]

I always had a dead battery, and frequently used my trunk (great hiding place from the kids for XMas gifts etc.). once you connect your new battery, the trunk mechanism will run & pop up -nothing special needs to be done. Worst case - if yours behaves differently than mine, just hit the trunk button on your remote, & that'll force it up too. BTW, Your car will also run differently (in default mode) - bacause it has to "learn" your driving habits & adjust the car's computer accordingly. So the first few trips will feel/shift different than before it lost it's battery power.

I purchased an optima battery last month because a regular lead-acid battery didn't like deep cycles. So far the Optima seems to hold a charge longer than any other battery I had. Only problem is that an Optima calls for a 10A charger, and I only have 4A. Not sure how I'll charge it if it ever go's dead.

[KHE]

You might need to toggle the positions of the lower paddle switch or the upper latch switch to get the motor back in sync.

[Jeff]

I'm going to put the fresh battery on it later today- we'll see what it does...

In my teens, I caught my ring in a basketball net (trying to dunk ) and when I started down, it actually stopped my fall and bounced me back up an inch or so. That let the ring slip out of the net and I hit the ground.

If you can picture when you buy a new toggle switch or something with the wires that are "pre-stripped" but they don't slide the skin off the wire all the way... that's what my finger looked like- down to the bone!

My dad took a pair of wire cutter pliers and cut the ring out of my finger in the back yard! We pushed it back together and wrapped it up. Today, you can't even tell it ever happened!

Only God can take the credit for that one!

Jeff