Broken Engine Hatch Release Lever (Interior)

Joined
22 March 2019
Messages
24
Location
Redwood City
The engine hatch release lever in my '91 is broken, and my mechanic says the part is NLA. Anyone out there have ideas on where to source a used or aftermarket part? Other options?


Thanks

Rob
 
Thanks for the replies. I cant quite tell if the piece in the link is what I need.

hatch release lever.jpg
^^^^^^^^^^^^This is the piece. It easily pops off and it looks like the female connection on the back of the lever is stripped. I can open the hatch by taking off the lever and turning the male portion of the latch cable that extrudes from the body panel.


I was thinking I might be able to dremel out some of the stripped out plastic material and then insert a small nut driver bit into the opening that will fit the male portion of the latch cable.
 
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Just speculating here but I suspect the lever you have on there now is not original. My Targa has a similar lever because it's Targa. With a coupe, folks can't leave the "top down" hence no need for a lock on the engine hatch. Perhaps folks with coupes can chime in as to what type of lever they have.
 
Just speculating here but I suspect the lever you have on there now is not original. My Targa has a similar lever because it's Targa. With a coupe, folks can't leave the "top down" hence no need for a lock on the engine hatch. Perhaps folks with coupes can chime in as to what type of lever they have.

That is correct:)......

But for the Tan interior, that was a 1995 up.

HTH,
LarryB
 
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Thanks for all the info everyone. The photo I posted was one I grabbed off an old prime post; my part is black with no lock. I despaired when I saw the price for the locking lever, but happily the part for my 91 was much cheaper and I just ordered it. I_M_Legend, thanks for the link, that post will definitely come in handy.
 
Thanks for all the info everyone. The photo I posted was one I grabbed off an old prime post; my part is black with no lock. I despaired when I saw the price for the locking lever, but happily the part for my 91 was much cheaper and I just ordered it. I_M_Legend, thanks for the link, that post will definitely come in handy.

Ah...ok, that makes more sense now.

Glad it worked out for you.
 
If a new part is NLA, I am sure you can make that stay using some good ol redneck engineering. My go to material is dental denture resin for broken plastic!
 
@emac hmmm...I may need to order some dental denture resin for my cracked defrost panel.

Most of the NSX interior panels are ABS and ABS solvent cement works well for repairs. Simple butt style repairs (apply cement to edges and push pieces together) will be very weak and fail quickly in use. if you can lap the back side of the crack with a piece of thin ABS solvent welded to the back of the repair area this will create a very durable repair. The constraining factor will be that you need a small amount of space behind the failed piece for the repair reinforcement. This does not work for parts that butt up hard against something. ABS sheets / pieces are available from on-line vendors on Amazon and EBay and I picked up some solvent cement from Lowes. Get the greyish sort of clear multi surface cement which ends up pretty clear, not the yellow stuff typically used for plumbing which leaves a yellow residue if there is any excess glue.

If the repair area has chips / gaps in it you can make an ABS filler compound to fill these gaps in. File a piece of ABS to create some ABS dust and mix this dust into some solvent cement. Once it is dissolved in the solvent cement apply to the gaps. Takes some practise to do this well because the solvent can start to evaporate pretty quickly. Its not perfect because the filled area will be smooth lacking the surface grain of the original piece; but, better than a broken piece with a gap.

Be careful with the solvent cement because if you slop it on to the facing surface of the piece it will damage the grain pattern on the plastic.

This repair technique works very well for broken ABS mounting tabs on things like the interior door panels and the lower panels under the dash. Anything where the repair area is hidden from view and you don't have to worry about little oops moments with the solvent cement and you have space for the reinforcing piece. Its a good skill to develop because not only are the replacement panels really expensive at some point they are likely going to be really hard to source.

The solvent welding technique generally works better than glue repairs. Glue repairs depend on the ability of the glue to adhere to the ABS surface and ABS is a material that is notoriously hard to get things to stick to. Solvent welding actually dissolves the ABS and the repaired pieces become closer to a continuous piece when the solvent evaporates so you are not relying on adhesion for the repair.
 
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