Gday Yurik,
Thanks for the reply ... it's not a secret, I'm happy to explain if
someone's interested, that's all.
This problem progressively gets worse over time, given the beating the
sliding door catch has to contend with. Picture this in your minds eye
... everytime you slide open the sliding door, the door reaches it's
open limit and the door catch (mounted on the door) is grabbed and held
by the springloaded keeper that's mounted on the pillar. There are some
pretty solid forces at work here depending on the speed you push the
door open and in the twinkling of an eye, magically the door keeper has
to grab and hold the door catch. There's quite a bit of weight in that
door. Abuse it enough and the catch plate starts to fracture and starts
to shift its position in it's holder, so now the catch is impeded from
aligning and working properly, the result is it no longer holds the door
open properly. Leave the problem long enough and I would expect the
catch would shear completely. Better to deal with repairing the catch
before it reaches that stage.
A close inspection reveals all. Take off the sliding door inside door
lever and inside lining then you can unscrew the 3 screws holding the
door catch on the sliding door. Simple enough. The door catch pivots and
is sort of "riveted" into the catch holder, preventing you from
disassembling the catch unit and getting at the catch more easily to
repair. So basically, you need to undo the damage done to the catch. In
my case it was stressed from 16 years of use and the metal was
fracturing and giving way, resulting in misalignment. It's simple enough
to understand how it works and what re-bending back into correct
alignment in its housing needs to happen first in your workshop, with
the aid of your bench vice to hold things while you hammer and punch to
realign the catch. Then get out the trusty electric welder and weld the
fracture and add more weld as a reinforcement in that area where the
stresses are occurring. Trick is not to apply weld to that part of the
catch where the keeper engages or you'll make problems for yourself.
It's simple enough to stick your welding rod in to add weld, but overdue
it or make a mess of it and because of the constricted space, impossible
to get your 4" grinder in to remove any excess weld. But if you plan
ahead, practice your welding first on something else and you should be
ok.
Clean up the welding and at least apply a protective metal paint primer.
On mine, I also noticed the bottom end of the inside door lever rubs on
the door lining and adjacent metalwork of the door, making scratch and
rub marks that are less than appealing. So with a combination of nylon
and metal spaces behind the handle, I packed it out, so now the lever
has a good working clearance.
Keep this in mind. Maintain the sliding door mechanism in good condition
and the downside is it slides really well. That means the catch is going
to be stressed even more everytime you bang open the door. Just be
mindful of this problem ... as they say .... a thing is only as good as
its weakest link and in this case it's the door catch. Go easy on it
p_l_e_a_s_e.
Happy fixing on a wet and windy indoors day. Cheers.
Ken
--- In
Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com, "Yurik Orlowsky"
<yuriko@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Ken,
>
> Don't keep it a secret - let us all know.
>
> Yurik
> 16" syncro
> WA
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken" unclekenz@...
> To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 8:32 AM
> Subject: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Sliding door hold-open catch
>
>
> > Anyone else having trouble keeping the sliding door open, especially
on
> > a downhill slope? The catch lets go. Well I fixed mine, works good
now,
> > if you're interested and handy, let me know.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>