The 'E' Type Forum

Hi All
Does anyone know of or have a drawing of how the series 1 boot latch works on a DHC? My boot won't latch now and is open all the time. For the life of me I can't see what the little bar on the boot lid latches to?
Many thanks as always chaps.
Ray Loud

Hi Ray - you say it won`t latch now - so what changes have you made that might have caused this ?
The position of the bar on the boot lid is adjustable via the bolts that hold it .

Hi Mark, thanks for the reply. The boot lid wouldn't stay shut, just happened a couple of weeks go. I started playing with the latch that is supposed to catch the male part from the boot lid. Sometimes it latches (i.e. locks in place when I push it down) but now I can't get it to catch at all. I push it down into the receiver and it just pops up again. Can't see what it latches to as it's inside the receiver. I'd attach a picture but this is a pretty unintuitive site and I'm new so can't work out how to do it.
Thanks Mark.
Ray

Ray, whatever you do be careful so as not to end up in a place whereby the boot is looked shut and won’t open. If that happens you are in deep soup!

Read up on the forum here about attaching a piece of twine to the latch and feed through the rear lamp should your release cable become detached.

Tim

Try oiling things - that can help a lot - removing the seal can give you more room - but don't slam it or you could chip paint.

Barrie

Sounds like something has slipped slightly out of place. Place a digital camera with a self timer in the boot. Point the camera towards the catch, fire the self timer and close the boot lid. You'll be able to see what's out of alignment and which direction you need to move the offending part.

The bar on the boot lid is captured by the hooked catch which is mounted on the rear of the body.

Hi - I've found the problem as to why my S1 DHC boot latch wasn't working. If you are slamming down the lid and its's not latching try this.
Don't undo anything just look inside the latch from the top. If you look to the extreme left and right you should see two loop ends of the spring sitting on plates. If you can only see one loop end or none, the loops have slipped down between the plate and the side of the latch. Simply get a small screw driver and lever the loop end back up onto the plate. It should now work. The latch is badly made as there is a gap between the plate and the side of the latch which allows the spring loop end to drop down into the gap.
Hope that might help someone.

Ray, that’s interesting, looking at my OTS boot latch the loops lie flat on the end plates, i.e. horizontally flat. There doesn’t seem to be any way they could slide down the size between the plates and the body of the latch unless they were twisted to a vertical orientation. Which way are yours orientated?

Geoff