Okay, I searched here, Zilvia and FA, nobody seems to find this difficult/important enough to have a thread on it.
How difficult is it to swap over a hatch? What kind (and what size) of tools would I need? The unbolting and re-bolting doesn’t look that tough, but for the wiring, is it a harness with a plug that I just unplug and then plug in to the new hatch, or do I have to cut the wires and splice them one by one?
Just a plug or 2, no cutting, make sure you have a freidn or two help you as it’s awkward to pull off. take off teh shocks first then unbolt the hinges. reverse process with the new hatch 
Beautiful, that’s what I wanted to hear Hopefully a mint rustless hatch will be residing on my car as early as this friday (or saturday)
IIRC the plugs are under the headliner so you will need to pull away some trim and the headliner to get at it. Or you could just splice the wires.
Be carefull if you splice the wires though. It’s right at the area where the wires get continually bent and unbent everytime the hatch opens and closes. So do a really good job with the sodering iron and use heat shrink tubing.
Even stock wires have been known to get worn away and short out after some time …
Pulling headliner it is then! Does anyone know off the top of their head what size and type of tools are needed for this? Since I will be hella far when attempting it, and I don’t wanna be missing tools.
With my first 240, I swapped my hatch for one from Standard Auto…In their parking lot…in like 20 minutes.
It’s easy.
You are just going to have to pull on some trim very hard I think. Maybe a screwdriver.
The shock bolts are 10 or 12mm
The hinge bolts are 14 or 17mm… 14mm IIRC
Bring 10, 12, 14, 17 sockets, a flathead, and phillips screwdriver and you’ll
be fine.
Thanks a lot, it looks like I’ll be doing this tommorow morning. Wish me luck!
just unplug / unclip the harness from the hatch entirely then re clip it to the new hatch dont splice the new harness in ??
New hatch is on and painted in flat black. Pics will be up as soon as she’s dry. Thx 240_Foz for the hatch and all the help swapping it, also thank your dad and his neighbour too, they were a great help.
This took a LOT longer than expected… Getting the screws from the hinge at the top, into the new hatch was a total PITA, it took forever. Everything else was smooth though.