New locks for the compartment doors

 Here's my compartment door lock, corroded and without a key.  Time to replace with something better!

Does anyone remember Mello Mike?  He used to post on the Airforums, (had an Overlander) but now runs a very informative blog here.  He wrote a post about baggage door locks that I found to be very interesting.  Ditching the worthless CH751 rv locks!


His comment about the site being confusing was spot on,  but they were very nice on the phone, just have your old lock in front of you when you call and Brenda will walk you right thru it!

 A couple of days later these showed up in the mail, they are very well made. Made in USA and have good instructions. Note the instructions are only in English and a single page!  No extra trees had to die to produce instructions in 14 different languages!

Note:  I ordered the same lock cam (the straight piece of metal in the picture that holds the door shut) as my original.  However, because I beefed up the interior seal (I wanted the compartment door to lie flush with the outside skin) and by using this medium D seal the cam no longer fit. 

I had to call the company back and sheepishly admit I'd ordered wrong one and asked for  the 1/4 inch offset that looks like this.

Brenda was very nice and shipped them out the same day for a very nominal fee of $1.50 each.   Excellent AMERICAN company with great service.   They also guarantee that no one in your geographical area will have the same key as you do!  They assign a key code to you the first time you call and if you wish, all future orders can be made to have the same keying.  There's also a special key they send you that will "fix" the lock if it ever jumps out of alignment.

OKOKOK   I know you want pricing and they are a little more expensive. At the time of this writing I paid $11.35 a lock with $3.00 for the additional dust cover.  The dust cover protects the investment and looks cool IMHO. 

Installation of the lock was pretty straight forward with just a few speedbumps.

The directions don't say to install the lock dust cover after the washer but I assure you it doesn't look right the other way.  How do I know?  I had to re-drill all the rivets out of the compartment door and start all over!

This is the correct way.... notice how the hinge is slightly offset, this insures it won't scratch your freshly polished aluminum skin.

 Then add the mounting nut (slightly bronzy in the picture)

The next metal piece is called the governor.  It sits snug up against the lock, I pulled it out a little so you could see it

 Now temporarily add the nylon mounting nut, just slightly snug.  No, you don't really have to do this, but if you don't you'll wish you had.  Read on..... well someone's got to read to the end of this post!LOL

 Rivet the back door in place.  If you didn't add the nylon locking nut you'll risk the governor falling down into the space between the two doors.   Raise your hand if you know where this is going!  Yep, the first time I did this I had to redrill all the door rivets out again to retrieve that little piece.

 NOW take the nylon nut off and add your cam (with the correct offset of course) there is additionally a little square space you can add if it improves the fit (it comes in the kit)

 Ta da ! , The finished product!