- Joined
- Dec 21, 2012
- Messages
- 183
- Karma
- 19
- Location
- Jeffersonville, Indiana
- Car
- 1929 Buick, 1957 Chevrolet
I have seen a lot of questions about DIY'ers wanting to hook up a door latch on street rods, hot rods and home built cars and projects. As you might know, trying to hook up door latches such as Bear Claw can sometimes pose a bit of a problem. You are sitting there scratching your head trying to figure a way to route linkages and bell cranks to operate the door latch while trying to figure out how to clear the window, especially if it needs to be operated from a direction that you didn't anticipate.
This proves to be a problem sometimes, especially since most door latches have handles that might need to operate by either pushing or pulling in different directions. First of all, try to not have the linkage "push" as it tends to "Deform" or "Flex" during the actuation process. You can purchase an expensive cable and pulley set for $50-$60 per door, or you can go to the local bike shop and purchase a cable for a bicycle that normally would be used to operate a hand brake.
Since this cable has its own sheath, it doesn't need guides or pulleys to keep it in place and it is easily routed so as to pull the latch in either direction without the use of pulleys. You will have to fabricate a way to hold the cable on each end so it won't move, otherwise it won't pull the latch.
Instead of spending $50-$60 per door, you can spend $5-$10 or so and have a setup that will not only be dependable, but won't break you wallet either. That might possibly leave a few greenbacks to play with other stuff that you want to do :mrgreen: .
This proves to be a problem sometimes, especially since most door latches have handles that might need to operate by either pushing or pulling in different directions. First of all, try to not have the linkage "push" as it tends to "Deform" or "Flex" during the actuation process. You can purchase an expensive cable and pulley set for $50-$60 per door, or you can go to the local bike shop and purchase a cable for a bicycle that normally would be used to operate a hand brake.
Since this cable has its own sheath, it doesn't need guides or pulleys to keep it in place and it is easily routed so as to pull the latch in either direction without the use of pulleys. You will have to fabricate a way to hold the cable on each end so it won't move, otherwise it won't pull the latch.
Instead of spending $50-$60 per door, you can spend $5-$10 or so and have a setup that will not only be dependable, but won't break you wallet either. That might possibly leave a few greenbacks to play with other stuff that you want to do :mrgreen: .
