door mechanism (rotor)

[pyrojim]

1966 Dart convertible. Having trouble with the doors. Seems the star wheel on the rotors are worn out or have a flat spot. Doors close good every second or third try. If you manually turn the rotor before closing, it works good more or less. I have adjusted the crap out of the doors and the strikers? So, the question is, "is there any way to rebuild the rotor/door mechanism? I haven't really looked, but can't believe that anyone would repop them. I'm afraid to buy a used set, install them and have them be worse than the set that's on there now.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Jim

 

[daliant]

The rotory style latch isn't meant to be servicable, the mechanism is riveted together. Does the wheel turn freely?
Sometimes you can get away with a good lube job with some penetrating oil but my experience with the rotory style latches is usually the rotor starts to not spin freely then gets slammed into the striker several hundred times which usually winds up distorting the rotor to the point where it barely turns, at that point it has to come apart or get replaced.
I've taken rotory latches apart before by grinding the head of the rivets off and prying the latch assembly apart. Once apart you can give everything that moves a good cleaning followed by some lube. The wheel needs to turn freely, if no amount of lube can get it to turn nice and smooth then it's probably distorted and needs the hole opened up a bit and made round again. To reassemble you'll have to weld the rivets back in place.
So like I said they aren't meant to be "serviced" but that doesn't mean they can't be fixed.