I've had problems with my latches that hold the clamshell down from day one. Mostly the drivers side latch. I was sent new ones soon after receiving my car, but they would not fit. Somehow my car got some backwards latches and the holes would not line up with the new latches and still have the cable pull towards the inside of the car. Weird. The blue line is where the cable pulls from.
I ended up sending the drivers side latch back for repairs. This didn't solve the problem of the latch releasing when my car flexed.
I finally got tired of this so I did some more tweaking. I took pictures from the inside of the latch when it was closed. Comes to find out the male part was entering the female part at an angle.
As you can see I made new brackets to hold the male bit. With some stainless hardware and a touch of paint, and a LOT of fiddling, they look a whole lot better than what was there before, and after a test drive, solved the problem. So far.
The female bit of the latch is still a POS, but it'll do for now. I might end up gutting them and just using them to center the male part and use some kind of spring latches inside the wheel well to secure the clamshell.
One more thing checked off of my list.
I would eventually get rid of the leather straps too. After looking how they are secured from the inside, I don't think they'd hold if air got under the clamshell anyway. I might just put a plate under those tiny screws on the inside for now.
During the test drive.
CG
