Re: Door at Batteries
Reply #6 –
Okay, I will share with you (and others) what I have learned in my quest to stop a bay door from opening.
The first picture is the latch assembly. You do not want to see it like this, because that means that the rivets that held it to the bay door have failed. The three circled bolt heads are the bolts to which Dave referred. They are 1/4 x 28 x 1/2" (Note the 28 threads per inch is considered fine. Most of the 1/4" bolts around my house are 1/4 x 20; they are not interchangeable!)
Removing these three bolts leave you three pieces:
The base plate, which is mounted to your bay door (picture 2).
The locking plate which secures the three bolts (picture 3).
The latching mechanism (picture 4)
As the installed latch assembly contacts the post, the post pushes the latch arm until it rotates enough to secure the post. When the handle is lifted, a lever pulls the cam (green arrow) enough to release the latch arm, and the door can open. The lever is connected to the handle mechanism at the green arrow shown in picture 5 (hanging down in this picture with only the base plate installed).
The slots in the base plate allow some adjustment in the latch mechanism, but that adjustment is only up and down on the post.
In my case, I thought the post was not going deep enough into the slot to close the latch. The post is mounted in a slot on its bracket, but it was already as close to the edge of the frame as it would go. To get the adjustment I (thought) I needed, I installed two 1/8" aluminum plates (picture 6) between the latching mechanism and the base plate. The 1/2" bolts were not long enough so I used three 1/4 x 28 x 3/4" bolts which worked.
However, that well thought out and designed engineering change did not solve my problem! It turns out that the lever when installed on this latch, pulls the cam past its latching point, so it NEVER latches. Somebody on foreforums drilled another hole in his lever to re-position it on the post. That will not work in my case because I need a longer lever, not a shorter one.
Hence my question to Dave about how he used vice grips to "rotate the spring latch." If I could re-position the cam, so it does not start out already disengaged, I think it might work. My next effort in my trial and error saga is to try to make a slightly longer lever.
Will keep you inquiring fans apprised as I learn more than I ever wanted to know about how our bay door latches work (and don't work).
If SKS has BTDT, I would appreciate learning how they succeeded.
Thanks,
Trent
Topic: Door at Batteries