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Full Version: Southco Latch Upgrade
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Greetings fellow Guru's,

I have had many failures of the Southco catches which Newell uses on many of the interior doors and compartments.

The weak spot is the plastic catch which breaks just inboard of the mounting screws. One of these catches which is used on the Sub Zero refrigerator door went unnoticed resulting in the door swinging open while underway. Luckily no broken eggs.

I had machined a few aluminum replacements which have worked out very well so far. If I can get enough people to be interested in obtaining some, I will make a run. I think the cost would be very reasonable.

Let me know your thoughts and interest.

Regards to all,

Mike
I would be curious as to how it mounts to the refrigerator. We are looking at a Samsung 4 door refrigerator and were wondering how we would secure the doors without it looking like it's being "Kid proofed". If it would work for that fridge, I would be all in on a machined version of that latch.
The latch fits the Sub Zero door pretty well and cannot be seen when closed. When open it goes unnoticed if you're not looking for it.

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I'll take some should you decide to do a run - I have 17 on my coach, but not one on the refer... Its a Jen Air which uses a solenoid above the doors with a rod that drops down and blocks a pair of aluminum arms (one for each door0.
i will take some too.
do you know the Southco part #?
Wow, great job!
I’m not sure why those things fail on the reefer. Maybe the colder air making them brittle. But, I’ve noticed that SouthCo changed the mold profile slightly; as well as the length. So they’ve obviously had issues?

Hard to find the correct match/version!

I spent a lot of time aligning my latch and receiver, too. I suspected that there was a bit of extra stress from not being perfectly aligned, causing a crash.

And finally, those are made with different strengths. Newell says they use 10lbs on all latches. I considered using two 5-pounders of they break again. My thought was less stress on that “cold” plastic latch.

What we NEED, is a 3D printed part using a super strong plastic like my son in law uses for BattleBot robots!!!
If you have a 3D printer you can go to https://southco.com/en_us_int/partstream

"ENTER A COMPLETE PART NUMBER, WITH DASHES, TO GO DIRECTLY TO YOUR CAD FILE. YOU MAY ALSO ENTER A PARTIAL PART NUMBER TO SEE A LISTING OF PART NUMBER MATCHES."
Just found the keepers for the C3-20x series on EBAY!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/313285088383?ha...Sw5YVfoXpO

this is the smaller hole distance BCD on the keeper

they no longer promote the old keeper style, but it is still available.


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