Door Latches

Now that I have the door fitting good and the new hinges working like I wanted it was time to move to the rear of the door. I have already removed the stock door latches in preparation for some new modern style latches to keep the door closed and to only open when I want them to!

The first thing I needed to decide was the location to mount the latch. The jambs and doors are narrow so I moved the latch around on the outside of the door looking for a good fit with minimal modifications to the door. The location of the stock latch seemed to be the best area so I test fit the latch inside the door. The photo on the left shows this location, latch highlighted in red. We are looking down through the window opening and the latch fit behind the channel.

After looking at the limited amount of room I had in this location with only the window channel in place I decided to go a different route. I decided to mount the latch to the cab.

In doing this you eliminate all the door opening mechanisms from the door. You must now plan a head as to the way you will open the doors from both inside and outside the vehicle. I have planned all along to use a solenoid to release the latch from outside the truck. It will now need to be used from inside the truck as well. Big catch number two. Plan some kind of manual release in case of electric failure. This is very important. Being locked out of your truck is bad but being locked in is worse!

Again I decided the area of the stock latch was the best location but would require a little more work than mounting it lower in the wider area. There are two reasons I decided to stay in this location. One is the factory brace in this area inside the jamb. Second is the fact I want to keep the alignment wedge to help guide the door closed.

The inner brace had a nice oval hole cut into it that I thought I could take advantage of. Some measuring and eyeballing showed that with the latch located right behind this plate the release finger on the latch would protrude through this opening. Perfect! I could then mount the solenoid at the floor area of the cab directly below the latch for a simplicity.

I then marked the area for the latch and trimmed it out leaving enough metal to mount the latch through two mounting holes. From the front side I slipped the latch in place and everything looked great. While patting myself on the back I asked myself would I be able to get the latch in and out from the back side? A quick try proved I could not removed the latch. The release finger was to long and would not fit between the brace and outer sheetmetal.

I saw three options here. Remove the brace, no. Slot the brace all the way to the top and add a removable plate that would screw onto the brace, maybe. Finally swap the latch for the other side moving the finger above the brace. That is the method I decided on. It adds a little more work as my release finger now needs to be pulled up from the top instead of down from the bottom. Since I will be running a cable from the solenoid to the latch I decided I would mount a small pulley wheel above the latch. The cable will run from the low mounted solenoid up to the pulley and down to the latch. Making a manual release will also be more work but may turn out better than I planned. We will see in a future segment.

With the latch know in place it was time to mount the stricker. The location was measured and marked on the door and drilled for the pin. The area above the pin needed to be temporarily trimmed so that the door would close. With the stricker mounted it was time to test the latch. Click, click, worked the first time!

Know that it works it is time to strengthen it up and rebuild up around the latch. I trimmed and bent up a piece of sheetmetal to cover the latch and spot welded it in place. The lower jamb area was slightly narrower than my latch and the upper area was way off. With the new center section spotted in place I made a couple of cuts above and below the latch area to blend them together. A pie section was removed in these areas and the sheetmetal bent over to line up with the new center section covering the latch. Once these areas were moved over and spot welded in place I made up a filler section to close up the void.

Since the jamb area on the cab has been modified the door will no longer close and needs modified to match. I didn't think of it before but there are some holes in this area of the door and I may need them. The two upper holes will be needed to hold the window channel frame in place inside the door. Well, it is a little late now to worry about. I went ahead and made my marks for trimming to match the two areas up and found that I got lucky. It was tight but modified area fits between these two holes and the frame fits as it should. Now I just need to fill a few unneeded holes and add a plate inside the door for the latch pin and finish it all up.