Catch me if you can - Door Latches & Strikers...

Randy V

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Sorry about the attempt to be smart..

If you've followed along with some of the other threads I've posted, you'll know that I wanted to do something different / special with the doors on my GT40.
I wanted to implement some sort of system that would make the doors a bit more safer, solid and to ensure that the body would maintain alignment and the doors latching would be repeatable year after year.

Well to do this I started out with creating Anti-Intrusion Beams (seen here);
http://www.gt40s.com/forum/gt40-tec...-pardon-intrusion-gt40-safety.html#post265289

I thought you fellows might like to see what I've been up to. There's been a couple of others that have fabricated their latch / catch in a similar manner.

Well I've finally progressed to the point of bringing Latch and striker together.

I used 1 x 2 mild steel .120" wall rectangular tubing that I cut and profiled to fit around the main hoop of my roll cage.

The striker bolt is (will be) adjustable in that the hole for the bolt is a bit larger than the striker bolt itself and there will be hardened serrated washers on either side to clamp tight to the rectangular tubing.

Only tack welded in place for now - but will be fully TIG welded when I pull the cage from the chassis to have it powder coated.

I've also anchored the Spider in numerous places to the cage and will follow up with a thread on that soon..

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and finally - the latched door :thumbsup:

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Randy V

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Thanks guys....

I spent a bit more time on it yesterday and the doors open and close quite nicely now..
My only issue is that the bulb seal up on the A-Pillar is a bit on the thick side and puts a fair amount of force on the door when it's closing. I'm probably going to look into changing this out for a different seal before the final filling/sanding of the door tops and roof are done.
 
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