real nice diy. its honda's problem.

 

Very nice writeup! :thumb:

 

sure is, but when you've got 70k miles, they don't give a squirt.

I think i forgot to mention that you're likely to DESTROY one of your fingers doing this. I think I'm still bleeding and I did all the work today at 2pm.

 

They need a tsb for this. Thanks for the writeup though.

 

glad i could help.


what would a tsb possibly do? there's no way they'd relocate the in trunk flip fold release latches, I mean...look at them...

Good luck finding a place in-cabin for those!

.....

or are you talking a tsb for the shearing off bolts?

 

^ after reading about this problem, I was actually thinking of relocating on of the releases into the cabin after hearing about this problem. It would stick up near the LATCH points, and pretty much be out of the way...

 

If you do it, make sure to do a DIY!

 

nice write up:thumb:

 

good stuff.....

 

thanks guys. I forgot to add that this is 'parking lot emergency' do-able. All I had at the time was a multitool.

 

Can this get stickied? Maybe?

 

thanks!

 

glad i could help! what a stupid design flaw. Mods, can we move this to the DIY section and sticky it?

 

wait a minute in my Si i have a keyhole that releases the back seats down..... Unless this is only prevelant to the coupe model or something. I have 07 Si Sedan and I don't see the need for this, unless of course you are unfortunate enough to have locked your keys in the trunk somehow then this is gud info. Gud write-up plus rep anyways for trying

 

I don't have a way to get into my trunk if the popper doesn't work. I have an FG2. No keyhole on the trunk and no keyhole in the back deck to let the seats down. I only have a keyhole to lock the popper on the drivers side.

 

+Rep.

 

Thanks for the write up thatsnotstock. If I may add:
The center pivot bracket of the rear passenger side seat has a hole that fits over a threaded dowel attached to the bracket of the rear driver side seat.
After removing the bolt between the two rear seats, use a large flathead screw driver to pry the rear passenger side seat bracket away from the dowel and pull that corner of the seat forward. This will give some room to access the bolt head behind the other bracket on the seat.

 

great point... made it much more accessible.

 

Nice job

 

So I went out to my car yesterday and realized that my trunk popper wasnt working. I could hit the 'pop' button on the remote all I wanted and it still wouldn't pop. There was ZERO tension on the lever inside the car.

I decided to take it upon myself to fix it, since I've noticed people on here just caving and taking their cars to Honda, I figured maybe I can save someone a hundred bucks and some frustration. Difficulty of this is about a 2 out of 10 if you know your way around cars.

First off, clean out your back seat. You're going to be crawling around back there like crazy

image


Next, you'll need to locate the seat's two attachment points.

The first one is a long bolt that connects the two back seats at the split/fold point. Peel back the seat padding to reveal it like so.

image


Use a wrench (or a socket if you have one) to completely remove this bolt. Turn it towards the trunk to loosen. Toss it in the cup holder so you don't lose it

Next, is the difficult bolt. Peel back the seat padding to reveal it.

image


The bolt 'enters' the cabin through the trunk, reach back BEHIND the triangle-shaped bit of exposed frame. Stick a wrench back there and slowly work the bolt loose. The nut is welded to the frame, so don't even bother.

With these two bolts gone, you should be able to rotate the BOTTOM of the seat up towards the roof. The seatback will come free of the rest of the seat. If that doesnt work, rotate it up, reach back into the trunk, and pull the seat releases, and fold the seats down. Hurray! You're in!!

Now since I had NO tension in the in-car trunk release handle, I figured that the cable had come loose. The following picture is how the mechanism SHOULD look.

image


In MY case, the two tinnnnny bolts that held the poper mechanism to the trunk lid had sheared off, causing the entire assembly (cable included) to swing free (held only by the wires for the poper). I needed to reattach it, and put the cable back into place). To accomplish this, I slowly backed what was left of them out of the bracket(which is threaded) and replaced them with a 5/40 3/4" hex head bolt, and loctited them into place. Picture of the NEW bolt below. Keep in mind that if this is the same problem you've got, you'll need to replace both bolts

image


With both bolts replaced, make sure the cable is seated as pictured (should be pretty obvious, but if you get confused, hit the pop button and see what moves). Close the trunk and hit the button, Viola!

Don't forget to make sure your in-car trunk release has tension again before you clean up. Simply reverse the bolt removal (big middle bolt first) to get your back seat back in place.

Hope this helps! Now get out there and :vtec:

what size wrench did you use for that bolt on the side of the passengers seat?!!!

 

Ya I needed the wrench size info too. Additionally, I cut my finger trying to go back there and I'm taking an indefinite break from this project. I'll probably call the honda complaint line tomorrow, as my visor popped off earlier this week due to the poor design.

 

Ok I got it guys I believe I used a 13mm socket for hex bolt same as the pivot screw. (actually its a 12mm but the 13mm is easier to get around the bolt) I had the same problem one of my screws broke off on the releasing mechanism making it off kilter. Thanks OP for the useful pics.

Where I cut my hand is on the underside of the passenger rear seat, it's very sharp underneath so try to shimmy the socket wrench from the side.

 

Is there an easy way to screw the bolt back in now? Assistance please.

 

yes... do it with the seat back down!

 

Another method to access your trunk via the back seat (doesn't take off seat)

So about 10 minutes with a coathanger with a small hook on it got me able to pull the release for the passenger-side backseat. It wasn't a gentle tug.. I thought I might break the cable as I was pulling it. You can see the cable if you smash your head against the rear windshield and look into the right-most childseat lock/anchor/thing with a flashlight. It's closer to the trunk-side. A long enough screwdriver might do the trick, as I read elsewhere, but the coathanger worked fine once I finally snared it and got angry enough to pull it hard. Thinking about it, I wouldn't like to use a flat-head screwdriver for fear that it might cut through or damage that cable.

After that, I took off the little black plastic cover on the actual trunk latch and noticed that the black plastic actuator piece wasn't pushing the metal spring-loaded latch. I fooled around with that for a little while (had to do it three times before it successfully opened the trunk).

Once I settled on this option, the entire process only took about 15 minutes. This was definitely easier for me than taking off the backseat, as I couldn't get the first nut to rotate at all with a leatherman (maybe I have a weak grip, but it wouldn't stay on as I tried to loosen the nut).

This was on a 2006 Civic EX coupe. Hope this helps someone. I suspect I will have to do this again sometime in the future, as I haven't any faith in that little plastic actuator in the latch now.

-Greg

 

love this thread...I replaced the one failed screw a year or so ago. This week the other screw broke, should've replaced it originally, oh well. thanks

 

Nice. Hopefully i wont need to use this information

Sent from my SGH-T999 using AutoGuide.Com Free App

 

Additional help that worked for me

This is an excellent posting for removing the seat back from a Honda Civic to access a jammed trunk. Two things I found,
1) When removing the second bolt use a wratcheting wrench. A standard wrench would have been very slow.
2) My trunk was jammed because a nut had come loose and landed right inside the locking mechanism. This prevented the trunk from unlocking. The nut was from one of two bolts that holds down the exterior trim on top of the trunk.
Thanks for the help fixing this. I can only imagine what the bill would have been.