Making an Unbreakable Door Lock Button

I'm tired of dealing with those d*mn brittle door lock buttons. Why couldn't Honda use the same locks as the Hatch and CRX? Anyway, I wandered the aisles of Home Depot looking for something made of plastic that I could make into a replacement vaguely like the original. I ended up in the plumbing department, looking at black ABS drain pipe. Ahhhh! Inspiration!

I went home, grabbed a piece of 4 in. pipe and started hacking. I cut a piece a little over width and plenty long.
308.jpg

Then I took the heat-gun to it, warmed it 'til it was getting soft and pressed it between the tabletop and a piece of steel to flatten it.
I cut it roughly to length, took the cut-off drop and glued it with ABS glue to create the hook.
309.jpg

After the glue had set up, I went to work with rasp and file, getting it roughly to the shape of the original (without the thinned area - weak spot).
310.jpg

I drilled a 1/8 hole in the bottom (no need to tap it, the rod will make its own threads), sanded it a little, primed and shot it with some GM paint I had laying around and that was it.
311.jpg

It's a little crude, I may repaint it with satin black, but it's way better than nothing and much stronger than OEM.
If Honda had used ABS instead of whatever that crap is, we wouldn't have all these problems now. Not that they cared.

Comments

  • Nice stuff there. Having access to a welder I'd probably take that chunk and either weld on or just pad a bead at the end to build up the material. I'd also look at maybe doing a bit of HDPE on the sides just to snug it up a bit so there's no wobble. The original has those springs at the side for those purposes. That looks like a shitload of filing though. Good work.
Sign In or Register to comment.