Thanks guys, the last two pics help. The gold car show the ribbed end of the rod is the part that goes in the quarter hole, and the red car should steer me in the right direction to get it back in the clip on the other end which is smooth?
All in all whoever painted the car must have put it back pretty darn close to factory because mine is almost identical in locations to the grabber green car as a whole. I thought it was way off and all in the wrong spots but these pics help. Makes me think they may be the original trunk lid and quarter extension too so they used the same holes that were there but I haven't looked at the lid to look for original markings or anything. Probably another search is in order to figure that all out.