The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Bear Claws Completed - AD Installation

I was able to complete the installation of the bear claw latches last Sunday and took plenty of pictures to document my efforts should someone else want to try this themselves. Hopefully this can get turned into a tech tip soon.

Once I figured out how to do it on the passenger side, the driver's side went very smoothly. The latches work great and are a great improvement over the old ones. Probably one of the best mods I could make to this truck other than planting a V8 into it.

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=11601864&uid=2902753

i was ready to congratulate you until you mentioned the v/8, heresy. oh well, looks good, congrats anyway. Ron

That's the way to do it, figure it out, try it out and then tell the Bolt about it in a Tech Tip
A Job well done.
Thank YOU

Excellent job. Great documentation. I'll be doing that one of these days and your pics will help a bunch. Thanks, Bob

Thank you for posting those pictures. I've been trying to decide whether to jump into converting my latches now, before I paint everything, or waiting so I can get the truck finished and drive it.

I'm convinced now that I should do it before painting.

I found some kits on e-bay for what seem to be reasonable prices- $50 for two latches, strikers and the weld in install kits.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Larg...Z018QQcategoryZ33696QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

NM51 - those are the large latches which will not work in these doors. I ordered those first thinking bigger was better but upon further examination found they would not work - just not enough room. Those are the people I got mine from so contact them and ask for the small latches and installation kit. Good luck.

I installed the large bear claws in my 50, they work great and were a piece of cake to install.
Just have to offset the mounting plate on the door about a 1\2" so the latch clears the run channel. Hooked up the solenoids and remote. "POP" open they come.
Also added a linear actuator to the cowl vent and wired it to the remote control with limit switches, push the button and it goes up and stops, push another button and it goes down and stops.
Anyway large will work.

I googled bear claw and found another site where someone installed the reinforcing plates on the inside of the door rather than cutting it out and welding them in place.

Here's the other article:

http://www.roddingroundtable.com/tech/articles/bearclaw1.html

Does anyone have any experiece with 'power bear claws' or installing separate actuators?
[img]http://www.a1electric.com/images8/94000.jpg[/img]

I installed actuators in my 50, simular to the one on the left.
Real easy to do, but running the huge 10 ga wire was the hardest part.
Mine are ran by a 7 channel remote. ( no door handles in the outside )