Date:         13 Jul 1995 13:55:03 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Harvey Chao" <Harvey_Chao@smtp.svl.trw.com>
Subject:      Re: sliding door lock, 82 v

                      RE>>sliding door lock, 82 vanagon            7/13/95

Been down this road.  Did it several years ago, and I am going from memory
(that is dimming fast).

Panel  Removal - Yep it is held in by "push in " fasteners.  An ideal tool is,
slotted to fit on either side of the "stem" of the fastener, bent at 90
degrees to the fastener "stem" (parallel to the fastner "head") and of wood or
cushioned so it won't mar the paint.  Never did find such an animal.  What I
have used are:  a spark plug wire puller (it meets the first two criteria) and
a mineature (6" long) "wrecking/crow bar.  Try using a flat wooden stick to
lift the panel just to the left or right of each fastener in order to get you
real "pulling tool" under the faster head/on either side of the stem. 
Actually, I've had the door panel and a couple of others off a few times, and
it really isn't that bad.  The most import thing is - it's OK to break a
fastner if you have too, they are replaceble.  What isn't cool is to wreck the
hole in the panel that the fastener head anchors to.  So don't just pull in
the middle between fastners, but try to get on each side and as close to the
fastner stem as possible.

About the latch itself -   It sounds like you (Joerg and Erik) have the same
broken spring I had.  This spring is the one that causes the lock button to
"snap" into either the up or down position.  Naturally, the spring is not
available as a replacement, you'd have to buy the whole latch, about $60 when
I looked into buying just the spring several years ago.  Wrecking yard latches
had the same problem.  So - the broken spring is basically a piece of wire
with a 1/4"  loop in it, and if I remember, the ends of the wire bent at right
angles or so to anchor the spring and transmit it's force to the associated
parts.
             ( )
          /     \         Kinda like this with the ends bent into/out of the
page at/or away 
       /           \      from you.

What I did was find a coil spring with the right diameter and turns that
touched each other and cut off several turns.  I streightened out the wire at
each end leaving one or two turns intact in the middle, and then bent the
ends.  Used that to replace the broken spring.  It doesn't work as well as the
original, is kinda "whimpy" in the "snap action"   but is functional.  I put
the remains of the "donar" spring up for future use the next time the spring
in the latch breaks.

Harvey

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