door latches

[53 randy]

I heard that Jeep Wrangler, half metal door latches, from 97-06 will work on 47-54 chevy doors and every little cutting required. Has only one tried them? Looking at them they should work. Hard to beat the cost, $75 new and about $35- $45 used, per side. Randy

[MiraclePieCo]

Sounds interesting. Do you have any photos of them?

[53 randy]

You can go to E-bay and look up the latches. Make sure you are looking at the metal half door for the wrangler and the right years. The full size door latches are not the same. Randy

[MARTINSR]

I have a pair of NOS ones I was going to put on my truck. I would sell them but I really need to hang onto them until I know I won't be using them.

I haven't bought a "Streetrod" bear claw latch in a few years, so may be they have something like this on the market. But when I bought the last "Bear claws" they were pretty limited. First and foremost they didn't have a lock! You couldn't lock the latch because on the motorhome they came off of the lock was in the handle this "bear claw" was bolted to. Yep, the bear claw latches that were available were from the motorhome industry. The set I bought even had the part number ground off them so this little secret would remain a mystery. The latch was bolted to a pot metal handle on the motor home. This handle had the lock built into it so there was no reason for the latch to have a lock. That bugged me, it meant that you had to either have a car you didn't care if it locked or not, or use the latch with an electric solenoid system.

So, one day a Jeep Wrangler with a hard top came in my shop and there were my latches! These latches would fit in just about any old car door with ease, and they have locks! They are from a 1990 Wrangler "full hard top door". They come with a rod to the handle and are part number 86507027 and 83507028 and retail for $77.05 each. They are still available but you better get going, because my Dodge dealer partsman ran a search and there were only a few around!



This latch is very thin at only about 3/4" at the thickest point. They measure about six inches high, two inches right where the "bear claws" are and three inches where all the rod attachments are.






Now another cool part about these latches, they had a removable cover! The part number is J5758171 and J5758170. The bad part is, these cover have been discontinued. My parts guy found ONE of them in some dealer in Texas or something like that. So outside of a used parts outlet for Jeeps you are SOL on them.
The lock rod for these latches is number 55074673 but I didn't look at both of them I assume this was a left or right and there is another number for the other side.

The strikers are number 55074673.



Good luck finding these parts they are obviously getting scarce but maybe someone repros them?

Brian

[53 randy]

I have a jeep wrecking yard close by so I will check on both. thanks MARTINSR Randy