Door latch rail cover

TLDR

• Installed door handle
• Installed the cover for the door latch rails

Detail

Door handle

The door handles required 2 new holes to be drilled on the canopy. The location is behind the window.

To get the hole location precisely, I temporarily fastened 2 M4 screws on the handle, and cut off the heads. Then I pressed the handle to the canopy very hard. This left a light mark on the screw locations. Then I drilled the holes and countersunk them so they will not block the window installation later.

After the holes were drilled, I countersunk them to fit M4 flathead screws, and fully secured the handle with 2 M4 each (and loctite 243).

Latch cover

The 2 covers did not have pre-cut holes. I needed to figure out the hole location to fit both the front and back latches.

This wasn’t really a precise work. I just eye-balled the latch location, and made a lot of small cuts, and test fitted each time.

The final cut holes were much larger than my first cut but finally fit the latches.

Before putting on the cover permanently, I drilled 2 M4 rivnuts on each side to screw in the cover.

As the last step, I installed the latch handle. The handles are secured by a M4 screw and a locknut. The locknut would be very difficult to access if I put on the windows. So I decided to only install half of the handle. They are still large enough for my hands, and provide a much better clearance for future service.