The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Rebuilding AD Door Latches

When I got my truck, the doors were sagging badly and the driver's door had been used so much that the safety catch and the ramp were worn really badly. The passenger latch was also worn but not as badly. So when I disassembled the doors, I decided to use weld to repair the safety catches and ramp. I used some copper strips (old pipe) to isolate where I was welding to keep from fusing welding the catch to the latch.
Here's a few pics - first of building up weld on the ramp.

Then pics of building up the safety catch itself, again with copper strips on the ramp to protect it. And one of the finished product. Most of the grinding was done with a dremel tool, and some hand filing. Also welded up the driver's door outside handle stem where it typically wears on the square end.

Kevin, GREAT Job! A few years ago I had to disassembly my passenger door latch and weld a detached (pressed in) piece in the latch body. In all honesty, I don't recall the details but it wasn't anywhere near the work you did so well.

RonR

Thanks Ron,
For my next trick, I may try zinc plating these and other hardware. Been researching that on the web. Doesn't look that difficult.

Those doors will close with a THUD now. I know mine did when I did this in my 53 style doors. Nicely done, Kevin.

Have you considered nickel plating them? It is pretty easy if you can get them clean enough. Depending, you may need to copper plate them first, but that's not a big trick.

Nice work Kevin! I'm certain that your work will be head and shoulders above the cheap reproduction latches. If I'm not mistaken, 52Carl has done something similar.

A while back, I purchased an entire lot of door latches and striker plates all in various states of disrepair. My plan is to do exactly what you're doing. Let us know how this works out for you.

Interesting idea. I just looked up DIY nickel plating and it looks like it would go directly on iron without copper plating first. But I think they were originally zinc plated (I'd need a spectrometer to be sure, and don't have one of those in my back pocket. )
I will definitely update this on my plating efforts. Looks like I'll need to derust them a bit more before plating. Currently out of Evaporust, so this is on the back burner till I get more of that. I do have some muriatic acid, but that stuff is nasty. It would take off any remaining zinc plating as well as rust.

Kevin - nice job on repairing your 51-3100 door latches! I did the same on my 51-3100 latches and they work much better, except I still have a problem. The door closes in the safety catch position fine but the fully closed/latched position is too far inboard by about 1/8" - 3/16". I tried adjusting the door latch but the mounting holes only allow for vertical adjustment, not horizontal adjustment. Don't know if you ran into the same problem or not and what you did to remedy it. Is elongating the mounting holes the only solution? Seems like we are at about the same points in our builds. Thanks!

Charlie, you may need to consider bending the door hinges. You'd need to bend in the opposite direction I needed in my door tuning efforts.

Good Luck

RR

I haven’t gotten to fitting doors and latches yet. Still working on rebuilding hinges.
You might need to install the springs that go over the rotating part of the latches so they trigger sooner. That seems to be a common wear point. I have those and will install them if needed.

moparguy - thanks for your suggestion but I don't think that is my problem. The door aligns properly, after a lot of fine tuning, without the latch installed. After installing the latch the door closes too far inboard. The slots in the latch allows for vertical adjustment but not horizontal adjustment. For the door to close properly I feel the latch needs to be adjusted outboard?

Kevin - thanks for the suggestion, I will look into that.

Charlie, are the door gaskets installed?

Maybe the striker needs to be adjusted outward a bit. The holes in the sheetmetal are a bit oversize (they are slotted vertically), but if needed you could enlarge them toward the outside to be able to move the striker outward a bit. The screws thread into a sliding nutplate which I would think would give you quite a bit of movement ability.

moparguy - no, I have not installed the door gaskets yet. I was just mocking up the door latching assembly after aligning the door and repairing/correcting the door gaps.

Kevin- yes, that was what I was thinking, but was just wondering if there was another way.

Some good tips for the earlier years below, some tips apply to later years



http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/booklets/4748sctc/4748sctc10.html

http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/booklets/4748sctc/index.html

DADS50 - a lot of great info there, thanks!

My guess is you're way ahead of me here, but I found to do a proper job installing the door gaskets I had to remove the doors. If I were in your situation, I would not make any changes until the gaskets were in place and the doors rehung.

Good Luck,

RonR

RonR - I may not be as far ahead as you think. I'm just finishing up the metal working phase and will be starting the body working phase this winter. Since I had to do a lot, and I mean a lot, of metal work and tweeking of the doors to get the proper gaps, I thought I would mock up the latching assembly to see if any work needed to be done there. Thanks for your suggestion, I will keep that in mind.