As I mentioned in the ACME Hardtop writeup, the hardtop I found was somewhat rough. The passenger-side handle was broken and the driver-side latch was completely missing. I began searching high and low across the country to find a replacement latch but, they simply are not available. I only found one used parts dealer that had a single pair of CJ-7 ACME latches for sale at $99 each but, nothing for a CJ-5. I quickly discovered that working ACME latches were more rare than the actual tops since the zinc inners had a tendency to sieze up if they were not properly cared for.
I was forced to find an alternate solution if I was going to have working latches. I began searching through mountains of catalogs and came across a slamming cab lock made by A.L. Hansen Manufacturing Company. It had similar rough dimension but, most importantly, the distance from the door handle shaft to the door jamb was nearly identical to the original ACME latch. I only had to do some minor grinding to a couple of the corners to get them to properly fit the door recesses.
I started by clamping up the latch to the door to mark the mounting holes. I drilled the holes out and installed rivnuts to allow me to easily install/remove them; factory latches were only held in place with wood screws. A Rivnut is similar to a pop rivet; however, its center is hollow and threaded. Even so, the two screw holes nearest the door jamb did not have anything to mount to since the door was recessed around the original striker plate. Therefore, I had to fill in the void with Kevlar reinforced, short-strand fiberglass filler before drilling holes for the last two rivnuts.
I used the opportunity to clean off all of the old rubber seal adhesive that was slopped everywhere. Doing so really showed all of the cracks around the door. I enlarged the slightly, to give the filler something to cling to, and filled everything in just like the door recess.
The final project looked VERY nice; however, the new lathes required new striker plates. The factory ones would not work with my new latch. I took some measure measurements and welded up some new strikers that perfectly fit with my new latches.
I primed the door with some HPLF epoxy primer made by PPG with a DeVilbiss HVLP sprayer followed up a 2-step basecoat/clearcoat process in Amber Fire Pearlcoat. I will soon be putting a page dedicated to painting the entire Jeep.
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