Decklid Pins

As I wait for my prodigal motor controller to return, I'm doing a variety of miscellaneous things. Tonight it was the pins to hold the decklid closed (because of the rear battery box you have to remove the decklid latch). My kit did not come with the promised pins, so I just went down to my local auto parts store and looked in the "bling" section (OK, the "performance" section) and found these pins that looked very much like the pictures in the book:


Here is the driver's side pin installed. Note the angle it sticks out. I could not correct this much without deforming the side "wings" of the decklid:


Because of that angle, I had to enlarge the holes, both in the decklid, as well as in the hood pin kit, so that the pin would pass through unhindered. I used a circular file to enlarge the soft metal at both sides of the hole:


Here is a back view of the same pin, with the pop rivets circled and the hole for the pin to pass through (oval-shaped, for the same reason as above). I used the same rat-tail file to enlarge this hole appropriately:


Here is the passenger's-side decklid pin installed and complete. The pop-rivet at the top of the picture was a real pain - the face of my tool did not fit flush with the head of the rivet. On the other side, this resulted in the rivet bulging out about 3/16 of an inch. So, on this side, I piled some tiny washers against the rivet to keep it in place while the tool expanded the rivet. Turned out well:


And here is the whole thing. Complete for the first time since I dropped the engine!