Yesterday I installed the Power Deck lid Latch for my car. I have a 2003 SE so it didn't come with one to start with. I'm just writing this post for others who might want to do it. I'm at work right now so pictures will come later

First,
I went to the junk yard and found a SXT to pull the parts from.
I grabbed the "Trunk Pop" button, and its plug in connector that is located inside the glovebox. to remove these, the easiest way is to remove the screws at the bottom of the glove box. After you do that, the glovebox will come right out, providing easy access to the button. Next there are four retaining tabs that hold the button in its hole, really just lightly pinching these and shimmying the button out will work fine. After the button was out I cut the wires connected to the plug with a good 4-5 inches to spare.
Then I grabbed the Power Deck lid latch and the Deck lid wiring harness. Both are pretty easy to remove.

Next,
I started wiring. Now I wired my latch to the Ignition power. This means that My Latch will only activate if the key is in the ignition and in the "ON" or "Accessory" position (you can still open the trunk with your key if the car is off, don't worry). So to do this, I spliced in one side of the switch to the Cigarette lighter power (Red wire). Then I ran some 18 Ga. wire behind the glovebox, Down inside the door trim, under the weather stripping along the bottom side of the door, under the kick panel at the bottom center of each door, behind the center pillar with the passenger seat belt, under back door weather stripping, under kick panel, under the weather stripping up the side of the door just until the edge of the back seat covers it, then out of the weather stripping, stuffed behind the seat, stuffed behind up along the to of the back seats over the the drivers side, into the trunk, behind the side carpeting, joined with the newly installed wiring harness, up the drivers side arm holding the Deck lid, routed through the deck lid untill it reached the newly installed Power Latch.
I spliced the glovebox side of this wire with the other wire left on the switch (the one that isn't connected to the Cigarette lighter). Then, on the trunk side, I cut the connector that goes into the Deck lid Latch solenoid with about 4-5 inches of wire to spare. I spliced the wire that i just ran to the green tan wire on the connector, and I spliced a wire to go from the black wire on the connector, to the ground on the latch.

Finally, I turned the car on, pressed the button, and Viola! I'll have pictures of all this to follow very shortly.




















































Disclaimer

I am not going to be held Liable for any stupid screw up, mistake, or damage that you might do. So don't try to sue me. You asked for advice from the internet instead of taking it to the mechanic, so its your own damn fault.

 

Nice! I'll post a link to this thread in the How-To thread. If you can't edit your original post to add the pictures, I'll copy them in there if you'd like.

Thanks for taking the time to write this and take pictures!

 

very nice, you could even step this up a notch and buy a crime stoppers alarm/keyless entry system for 35 bucks offline and then you could have a remote opener for your trunk plus a pretty decent alarm system, you could even go back to the junk yard and rob that sxt of its electric lock setup and then you would have keyless entry, and if you don't want to do all four doors you could just put a electric lock on the driver door, its all pretty simple to do on your own once you figure out how to wire resistors in parallel to make the right ohms you need, and how to wire relay switches, and I have the diagram for those so it makes it easy to figure out.

I just installed the same alarm/keyless entry in my 04 neon and it seams just as good as my viper setup I had installed by pros on my truck, plus its got a nice bright L.E.D light to let people know not to mess with your ride, but I have a sxt so I didn't have to run many wires witch is nice and I already had electric locks, but I've helped install them before on a SE and it wasn't that bad of a task, anyways just throwing out suggestions, I'm just a big fan of keyless entry and electric trucks, helps avoid scratches in the paint from keys and the wife's nails, plus my neon only has one keyhole and that's the drivers door so it got annoying fast having to walk around the car to unlock it when I needed something on the passenger side, but that's me being lazy.

 

I just want a dang remote start system, lol.

 

I really like the disclaimer, I would kind of like one of these, though I already have the remote thing (though it doesn't really work).

 

That's the plan so far. I want to get all the power accessories installed first before I get the rest of it done. but I want to get the full setup, remote start, keyless entry, all of it. my next big hurdle is gonna be finding the door panel for the power accessories for my tan color interior, then swapping them out for the ones in there now.

I like everything to always look like it was supposed to be that way originaly, that means no ugly aftermarket switch sitting in some awkward place on my Stock door panel... Most certainly no "phantom turning" window crank after the power is all hooked up! lol

 

I'd love that diagram, if you could send it to me that would be awesome!

 

If you love your car it would be wise to invest in some wire loom and loom that wire especially near all the chafe points I can see in your pictures.

For longevities sake i would also ditch those connectors you used, having worked in automotive shops and car audio/alarm shops most of my life i can say they are prone to failure ( failure means a comeback and peeved off customer ), soldering is the best option with heatshrink followed by bowman seal connectors.

Last but not least I know the ciggarette lighter is fused but it would not hurt to inline fuse that wire.

A safer way would have been to remove the fusebox in the donor car and remove the specific connectors in there for the trunk release so as to have the car as close to factory as possible.

Don't take this as critcism, just friendly advice, i've seen my fair share of electrical disasters and fires, 90% of time all you do is just stand back and watch, fire extinguishers for the avg consumer don't work on electrical fires.

 

Thanks for the advice! I'm always looking to find a better way to do something. A couple questions would you fuse the 12V ignition side of the switch, or the Latch side? What are "Bowman Seal Connectors" and where can I get some? What do you mean by looming wire near Chafe points? What do you think of Butt connectors? I know how to solder, I have just traditionally always used them on all my stereo installations. I just though I would try those Quick Splice deals this time around.

I really do appreciate any advice you can give me. How else can people learn to improve if they are not told how to?

 

Bowman seal connectors have a light colored ends almost clear. Red for 14 gauge, blue for 12 gauge, yellow for 10 gauge, see if i can take a pic of some i have, They are basically your typical wire connectors with heatshrinkable plastic ends which will keep the weather,moisture and corrosion out.

Walmart has them under generic brands, they work just as well. Some types they make have solder cores so you crimp, heat with a lighter or butane mini torch and it heatrinks the ends and solders the wire all at once.

Chafe points would be anywhere the wire runs near metal edges. Pic 8 and pic 23 are good examples of possible chafing points where the wire could rub metal and become a problem over the years. The same loom you fed wire into traveling up the trunk lid can be had in spools for cheap.

I would fuse about 6" from ignition switch.

I would run a ground from the actuator no more than 6-8 inches.