Thread: bear Claw door latches

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Originally Posted by Navy7797

Anybody installed Bear Claw door latches in their rides ? If so are they that much better than original ? What's the good and bad of them ? Thinking of putting them in my 40 Ford p/u. I want to get the doors air and water tight with rubber moldings and the latches if necessary. Thanks for the inputs.

Manually operated or electric? My '37 Oze roller had bear claw latches that came with it, but no way to operate them. I wanted electric remote control, so I bought new AutoLoc latches, with the solenoid actuators. They work fine, but the method of mounting the solenoid to the latch is stupid. A bracket is provided that has three of the four holes that are used to mount the latch. You're expected to get just the right length of 5mm bolt and thread nuts onto the protruding bolts, inside the door, where you can't see them. I modified the solenoid brackets to bolt to the latch with two 10-32 button head cap screws, so the solenoid and latch could be placed inside the door as an assembly, and attached with four 6mm flat head screws. All I had to do was drill and tap two holes in latch and drill two matching holes in the solenoid bracket.

Some brands of latches will require English 1/4-20 flat head screws for mounting, but AutoLoc products are all metric and use 6mm screws.

AutoLoc sells a mounting kit that includes a steel support plate for the door and a door strike mounting plate, with a floating 7/16" nut for the strike bolt.

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