Mopar Trunk Detail
Understanding and correctly detailing one of the most overlooked areas of your Mopar musclecar
by Tom Shaw
photos by Tom Shaw
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This pair of trunk latch plates show a common paint pattern. On both cars, the latch plate is painted with one bolt installed and slid full right. After painting, the plate is adjusted, and the second bolt, unpainted with a black phosphate finish, is installed in the right side. This detail is typical of cars built at Chrysler’s Lynch Road plant and can differ from cars built at the St. Louis plant. Note the brush strokes of weatherstrip adhesive.
The latch is silver cadmium plated, and fastened with two black phosphate bolts/washers.
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Jack instructions are affixed to the underside of the trunk lid, and are commonly available as reproductions. W F70 is the tire size. This is the original grease pencil marking. F70 is the tire size and W means whitewall. The green trunk shows the jacking instructions in a different location and the tire size written in yellow grease pencil as 70-15 W.
We’ve pulled back the trunk mat on the right side to show the weatherstrip adhesive drips on the trunk floor. It is overflow from when the adhesive was being applied for the trunk weatherstrip. There is no particular pattern, the glue just fell where it fell. Some cars had more, some had less. Commonly, restorers can’t bring themselves to reproduce these “flaws”, but this is how this car was built at the Lynch Road factory.
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