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Old 05-14-2010, 10:51 AM   #8
Thadious
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Creston, BC Canada
Posts: 367
Re: Why bear claw latches?

I pulled a set of YJ soft door locks from a wrecking yard in Oregon. Basically pretty much the same as the Autolocs and meet the maximum space requirement of 3/4" thick to go between the side of the door and the window channel. I bent up a pair of brackets from 18 ga steel and used the cover plate off my kids YJ for a cutout template.

The one thing that I found that you will have to consider with the soft doors is that (atleast my set anyways) has no provision for locking the latch. Two levers with only the capability to unlock the latch, nothing else. I decided to go with door poppers and shave the handles, so this wasn't an issue. If you decide to go with 52-53 door handles, they are lockable from the outside (if you buy the repop set that replaces the drivers button with a lockable one). However you will have to do some mods to change the push button to a lever action (was toying with this myself using pieces from a PT cruiser handle).

Cheers,
Ted.
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