Next on the list was to improve the door locks I had used. You really had to slam the doors to close, and even worse if the windows were up!. The typical Chinese universal large "bearclaw" rotary latches are actually a knock off of ones made in the USA. Same bolt pattern and size etc. Only reason I didn't buy US made ones in the first place was that they are not lockable, so can't have a central locking system. But now I know how to fix that problem. The US ones are on the left and the Chinese ones on the right. I bought my latches from Hot Rod Latches. https://www.hotrodlatches.com/
The L shaped piece coming out of the original one is what turns the standard latch into a locking one. It is just a square rectangle with a thread on one face to hold a grub screw to control how far the piece can move in the slot. I would just cut the slot right through if making one from scratch. Can see it was even added afterwards by the manufacturer as not zinc plated like the rest of the latch.
The grey arms you see at the other end are what I had made and added to transfer the opening arm to the other side of the glass so I could have both an inner handle and a button push door handle to open from the outside, shown earlier in my write up.
Here I have transferred over the opening arms as well as the little steel box to hold the locking L piece in place. The link connects to my central locking actuator that I got off a XJ Jeep Cherokee.
There are three parts for the latch. The left and right C shape pieces, that wrap around the striker bolt, as well as a third L shaped arm that sits right at the bottom and holds the other two closed.
Really hard to show but the green handle is showing the position of the L shaped arm inside the latch case in its open position, hard against the back of the case. It pivots off the mounting hole by my thumb and the rest of the arm goes up the short side of the latch case to the release arm.
When the latch is closed, the arm comes up to the back of the C shaped pieces and holds them closed. This is when the locking piece I added can now slide up behind it and stop it from going back to the open position.
I got new glass cut as had scratched the original ones taking them in and out so often when building out the doors originally. It was green glass that is no longer available in the country. So I had some plain glass cut and tempered and a high heat rejection tint added that has a green tinge to it to make it the same as before in colour, but better against heat.
Only problem was I discovered the glaziers had not rounded the bottom corners and it would dig into the glass track. So I nervously ground a radius with a grinder with a flap disc. Just doing it a tiny bit at a time so it wouldn't heat it up and explode the tempered glass!
And what do you know, I scratched one of the panes fitting it! Least it was only the tint and had to get it redone.
Can you believe everything shown go into these two doors, and that is not even including the glass, door cards and window surrounds!
Another change I made was making a hatch in the floor to access the battery. I decided in the end it was easier than dropping the mufflers and taking it out via the bottom.
Not that noticeable in the end anyway and now was the time to do it before the floor gets bolted down with the bed panels.
Pleased to say that the door latches work so much better and the pressure relief vents are doing their job also as you can see all 4 of them flip up and open briefly at once. Truck started first go after being completely pulled apart a year ago and put back together, even on the old fuel still in the tank.
