Hey Guys, I'm finishing converting my van and I came across in two problems that are driving me nuts...
A bit of context, my van used to be a wheelchair van. The company that converted it doesn't exist anymore.
Since it used to have a lift in the back, the company extended the rear barn doors to accommodate the lift. This became a big pain the *** because...
- The OEM weather stripping is not compatible anymore and even though I'm not getting any water leaks, at the end of every trip I find a lot of dust in the back. I can see light through at the top. (Meaning that light, smells and noise leak out making it less stealthy)
- They didn't install extra latches, so every time I hit a big pothole or I go off road the door rattles like crazy like hitting two metal pipes, this is the issue that is actually killing me.
I've done some research on the last one and tried moving the latch striker around which made things better for a little bit, then I realized that the latch mechanism had some play, so I guess I need to change the entire thing...
To make things worse, the passenger side door (the one that rattles the most) has only 1 latch in the middle, which I guess it would be fine if they keept the doors OEM, but since they are larger now, the top flaps and makes that metal to metal sound. This is what it looks like:
There are a few things I can think off to fix this, like replacing existing latches and strikers for new ones. I don't know if installing a new latch in the passenger side and hook it up with the handle is feasible.
I dont know anything about weather strips. Is there a universal one that I could use for this?
and last, I feel like I've spent a lot of time into this issues and I was thinking about bringing the van to a shop to get this fixed but I don't know what kind of shop would do this work and if is worth the money...
Any latch or weather stripping advice that you guys can give me would be highly appreciated and if you guys know about a reputable shop in the bay area CA that would take on a work like this... or at least the kind of shop that would do something like this I would have a starting point.
Thanks !!