2000 LTC Trunk issues

[Brenda01]

Hi. This is my first time posting here. I asked this question on another Lincoln forum, but the fellas over there dont seem too enthusiastic on helping me.lol. A little background-I purchased a 2000 Lincoln Town car executive series from my Moms neighbor about 10 days ago. I was in town visiting for Mothers day, and her neighbor, an elderly man asked if I was interested in purchasing while I was walking her dog. After a few days of pondering I decided to go for it. 256k miles, rebuilt engine according to him, the body is in good condition, the interior is in excellent condition, and the price was very cheap so I decided to live a little and buy it. I drove it home from my Mothers house which is about 90 miles or so and it drove pretty smooth. However when I opened the trunk for a second time at home (the first time was while inspecting the car) I could not get it to close shut. The latch seemed to be stuck. I can move the latch by hand, but the key does not move the latch at all when turned.

I depleted my checking acct buying the car, so Im hoping to fix this myself for as cheap as possible. So far Ive been able to unscrew the mechanism all by myself from the trunk lid. However thats where Im stuck. Removing the 3 screws holding it in place wasnt all that easy, however removing the 3 plugs seem to be impossible. 1 of the plugs is rounded off and is attached to the turn key device. When I turn the key in the trunk lock it pulls the plug backwards moving a plastic piece inside the lock mechanism, however that doesnt move the lock latch as it should. The 2nd rounded plug is attached to the safety release pull lever in the trunk. Pulling that does not move the trunk latch either. The 3rd plug is rectangular. It has red and black connection wires that lead to something else. Im not sure. I tried for several hours to remove these 3 plugs from the device so that I could take it to a junk yard with me. No such luck. Any advice, help, clues or answers is appreciated. I took 15 pictures of the trunk lock, and the plugs which are posted here:

http://s1257.photobucket.com/albums/ii518/brenda01111/

pics 1-3 are the round plugs, 4-7 is the rectangular plug, and the rest are close up pictures and pictures of the whole device. Yesterday this car also got stuck in park. However I see the answer to that problem has already been posted on this messageboard I have several questions about this car, but I want to address them 1 by 1. Starting with the trunk...

[danielsatur]

There's a bunch a bunch of used cheap parts @ your local salvage yard!
Also see www.autopartsgeek.com , wwwautopartswarehouse.com

[rprough]

You really can find anything on the web if you look hard enough and that includes diagrams of trunk lid latches. If not then go to your local auto parts store and read through one of their books.