How to FLIP your trunk open. . .

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THE FLIP-TRUNK TRICK
Buying a Kit is a Scam!

I won an auction for one of these kits on EBAY, well let me tell you what I got people. I got a bag of STANLEY hardware. Yep, that's right, just plain old hinges and barrel bolt locks you use around the house. You can buy the stuff for under $10.00 in any good harware store. I would not qualify this as a FRAUDULENT sale, but information is intentionally left out! DO not buy a kit unless they can show you a very easy pre-fabricated kit designed for your car. Who wants a freekin' bag of hardware to install?

STANLEY is a good name, I'll give you that, but really! If I were you, no matter WHAT you are buying on-line, ask questions. I have been rauded FOUR times on Yahoo, and once on Ebay's HALF.com, and now once on Ebay with this shitty bag of parts..

After I realized I was not making a doggie-door with this shit, I calmed down and decided to tell everyone else how to do this. DO NOT BUY A KIT FROM AN AUCTION ON EBAY!!!!! You'll get what you paid for, well, not really. . .

Here are the pictures of what I got:

LIGHT DUTY barrel bolt, two of them. You won't use the clasp end, just the base itself. You'll slide the bolt in and out of the hole you have to drill in the trunk arm. This was the right Part Number found, but mine looks smaller and more squared off, not rectangular.
Part# 81-3200

This is a LIGHT DUTY Strap Hinge. Two come in a set. One end will be sandwitched between the trunk lid and the arm, the other bolted to the trunk lid. No screwes were with the hinges.
Part# 14-0310

I kid you not! This is the what the jack-ass sent me, to make this modification!

Anyhow, I am going to tell you how to do it yourself, so you do not have to get fooled by one of these jag-off sellors that do not have a PROFESSIONAL kit, and sell you what you can buy in a hardware store. SO, if you want to do it, then go spend the $5.00 in a hardware store youself, and not get ripped with $4.00 shipping either. Cause I paid over $12.00 total for the parts and shipping.

Read this completely before attempting the installation! This probably will not work on your 1997 to 2000 Avenger. This is becuase there are TWO large holes in the trunk lid, both offset enough above where the trunk arms bolt to the lid. This will prevent securing the hinge safely to the lid. So do this at your own risk, or find another way. The jag-off that sold me the crap apparently doesn't do any research on vehicles to back his claims. This clearly will not do justice. . .

How this kit should be installed:
What you are going to do is place one end the hinge under the area where the trunk arm bolts to the trunk-lid, and the other end of the arm to the trunk lid itself. So basically, you are going to "sandwitch" one of the hinge ends between the arm and trunk lid, with the elbow of the hinge facing the rear. Threre are two O.E. bolts in each arm where it bolts to the trunk.

As stated, the elbow of the "hinge" you install, must face the back of the car when installing. Try to find a hinge that is as close to the shape of the bolt-on area as possible. The ones I got, as seen, were long and triangular, but would work. There are rectanglar ones I saw, but one end was much shorter in length. The one I got did cover the entire surface area of the arm.

The project is is not ALL that easy, but the easiest part is setting it up on the trunk arms. You can set it, or glue it on, and drill the holes out and screw in. The screws that came with the kit did not work all that well either! They stripped once thet were all the way down in the hinge, it just kept turning.

What I did was, tac-glued it on the arm, then drilled through the holes, screwed it down and was done with this part.

If you only marked them with paint, remove the hinge and drill the holes where the hinge holes are, place hinge back on, screw them on and tighten. If you do it this way, you leave your work open to allignment problems.

So, now you have one end of the hings on, and the other end flopping around, and your trunk lid lying off somewhere.

Mounting the strap to the trunk lid is a little more difficult, and may require to people so one can hold the trunk lid while you mount it back on the arms, I have one of three kids to choose from.

The easiest way is, to drill holes through the hinges on the TRUNK ARM where the OE holes are, and remount the trunk lid with the OE bolt(s) temporarily. Now you can then get other end of the hinges, press or glue them against the trunk lid, mark, drill, and screw the hinges in the lid. - OR - You can use the bottom hole where the hinge does not COVER it, and mount the trunk lid with one bolt on each side - much easier.

The screws did NOT hold very well, and kept turning when they bottomed out in the hinge. So, you may want to WELD the hinges on. The only way for this to work GOOD is to weld the stuff on, it just feels loose with what is given.

Then remove the O.E. bolt(s), and the thing should work. The trunk lid will face DOWN a little too much, so you will need a bump-stop of some sorts to even it out. You'll also need a spacer, the SAME thickness as the hinge to the rear of each trunk arm where that bolt hole is, to keep the trunk level when you lock & close it.

If the hinges are off center (which is why you should glue them on the arms first, then drill & set - same with seting up on the trunk lid), the trunk may not close, or fully close, or have a larger gap between the rear window seal and the trunk lid.

You'll just have to figure it out, but the specific function is; when you open the trunk, the hinge bends down, the trunk lid in a horizontal position. The hinge should hit against the end of the trunk arm to stop it. You may want to glue rubber stops in the trunk lid where they meet, to protect the paint, and to adjust for the perefect position when open.

Locks:
Install two barrel-bolt type, you need to drill a hole big enough for the lock piston of the barrel bolt to slide in and out of the hole in each trunk arm. You only need a hole on one side of each arm. The locks will be bolted to the trunk lid, you can do that anywhere it will fit. On the avenger, the area where the arm bolts to the lid is raised up slightly, so the lock will not bolt straight on, it will be angled a bit.

If not locked, the trunk lid in towards the rear window will jumble up and down when you hit bumps.

Once this is all going to hold in place you may want to add a drip of adhesive to each screw, one at a time. Remove one, place a dab of just enough glue, or silicone on the threads, then screw it back in firmly. You can do it to half, or all of the screws. If you are going to seal with a silicone, then you should do them all. If you are going to use a VERY strong, long lasting glue, then maybe do half, in an alternating pattern.

I am not even sure I will even install this crap in my car. I wasted $12.99, tell you that people. $8.99 plus $4.00 shipping, FOUR DOLLARS shipping? What a jag-off huh? Looking at what it costs right on the package (About $2.58), then see that HE charged me two times that, the mother *beep*er.

4/25/03: So, I decided, since I was bored, and home early, NOTHING ELSE To DO, I decided to give this a try. What a fiasco this was, nothing turned out the way it should have. First off, there were NO screws included with the hinges, yeah, that's right, no screws. The install went as described above, except I laid the trunk lid down on the body, almost IN the trunk while installing, and it was ok.

The brackets will not line up all that good, you will only be able to use TWO of the screw holes, because the OE hole is directly in the way of at least ONE of them. You WILL have to glue it on first, becuase it will just move all around when you are drilling the holes. You'llprobably have to drill NEW holes, but then they won't counter-sink! You're kind of stuck with what you got in your mail-bag!

The hing-arm does not extend the length if the trunk arm, so when you DO close the trunk normally, it dips inward towards the window, and looks bad. You will have to place a washer or some kind of spacer to keep it even. You will have to do this before installing the stupid Barrel Bolt lock.

The spot on the trunk lid itself, where the hinge is to be fastened, you can only use TWO of those holes as well, since you have that BIG hole there (one where your cables run into on the right). The screws included will not tighten up at all, you will have to switch to METAL screws. I used the ones included, and they tightened down, but continued spinning once all the way in.

I did not even bother to install the Barrel Bolt locks, they just do not mount on the lid right, anywhere close. They would be pointing diagonally, and that just won't do. This was just a total sham of a kit.

HOWEVER, I did get it installed, and it DID work, but it was very lose fitting, flimsy, and just not very professional looking at all. It wobbled due to the lack of being able to anchor it properly. You will need some kind of rubber STOP or the lid will point DOWN. Not much, maybe a 1/2" rubber stop, this WILL NOT BALANCE!

I removed the kit, said aloud - "F$CK YOU, YOU A$HOLE!", to the Ebay sellor (Member ID was "durtyburdinc"), and hope he rots in hell for such a lousy product, that he obviously did no research on this kit for the Avenger.

They change their IDs when they get too many bad sellor ratings, but you can see the kit and info is the same. They change their Ebay ID's, just watch for it. Although this guy had an over 700 rating, god knows HOW. . . I had to give 'em a good rating because there was no blatent deception, but there was, none the less.

Simplicitly? Do not buy a KIT from anyone on Ebay, unless they can show you a picture of it, or the parts it contains, and that it is designed for your car. IF you ask them a question, and they refuse to answer, after a few tries, or won't show you what you get, move on, you WON'T be sorry!

DO not buy the information on the Kit, becuase THIS IS IT!! If you paid me the .75cents, or whatever, it was well worth the information, and piece of mind knowing what you get before you order from those other people.

Wait till you see the stupid POWER CHIPS! They are not chips either, you'll find that information on this site as well.

Look for these headings when looking:
Dodge Avenger Flip Trunk Kit """HOTT""" {9.00 Buy Price}
Dodge Avenger FLIP TRUNK KIT custom built
Flip Flop Trunk - Dodge Neon / Avenger + More
95 + Dodge Stratus Avenger FLIPTRUNK KIT Body - This was 21.99 buy price!
Dodge Avenger Flip Flop Trunk Kit L@@K

	LIGHT DUTY barrel bolt, two of them. You won't use the clasp end, just the base itself. You'll slide the bolt in and out of the hole you have to drill in the trunk arm. This was the right Part Number found, but mine looks smaller and more squared off, not rectangular. Part# 81-3200
	This is a LIGHT DUTY Strap Hinge. Two come in a set. One end will be sandwitched between the trunk lid and the arm, the other bolted to the trunk lid. No screwes were with the hinges. Part# 14-0310