Rocky Mountain window latch repair

 10 Aug 2023

     " Long long time ago, I don't remember when..." I installed Rocky Mountain door tops and when I did the plastic outer part for the window latch broke. At the time my solution was to make a flat bar of aluminum and drill and thread it to hold the latch in place. This worked, BUT, it was indeed fugly.

 

So along comes 50wulf posting on the Guns and Rovers forum about this time last year with a better solution that even allows the window to slide further open,

https://www.gunsandrovers.com/forum/guns-and-rovers-main/tech-tricks-and-common-fixes/204877-rocky-mountain-window-modification#post214823

I FINALLY bought 4 of the low profile machine screws from McMaster-Carr

https://www.mcmaster.com/91223A332/  and after a couple of days they were in my grubby hands.

Today I put them in, not without some trial and tribulation.....

I wanted to make them as waterproof as possible and still look nice. I didn't have any rubber washers so I thought o-rings.....

 Turned out the hole in the glass is so big the o-rings just fell inside. What to do, my grommets were too thick,....I dragged out an old bit of innertube, you remember them? and set about to make 4 rubber washers. First I needed a punch for the outer dimension, which I didn't have. So I made one using 5/8" stainless tubing, I used a chamfering tool to sharpen the end.

Next with a tubing cutter about 4"'s was separated from the scrap piece;

Now I had the OD and I had a 1/4" hole punch already. Using these I set out to make my washers. Using a block of wood for a backstop.

Grrrrrrrrrrr! I couldn't get the center hole centered enough, mainly because I couldn't see down in the tube. I finally made several blanks and got out my hole punch for leather and after a bit I made 4 good enough to use.

From then on it was straight forward to replace the old with the new.

Until;

The right side wouldn't clear the front pane.  Investigation shows the glass has room to flop back and forth and partly compressed the top seal. the following pics show(poorly) the gap at the top.

Since I don't use that window much I just opted for a wooden wedge slid in between the seal and the pane. It still allows for the front glass to slide, but I figure eventually it will fall out.

Anywho, the rear glass slides past the front so I am calling it good!