sloppy checkstraps

[nicstrike]

the front door checkstraps wouldn't hold open a paperbag let alone a big , heavy door! a little lateral thinking & scrappy rummaging (& a little luck) solved the problem. the bongo's (our's anyway) checkstrap mechinism used nylon jaws acting on the strap itself. these jaws had worn to the point as to be about as much use as mudflaps on a tortoise! working on 2 assumtions i figured that firstly mazda would probably use a similar set up on most vehicles of a similar vintage and also that on the law of averages the rear ones should be less worn than fronts. a trip to the yard found me the proud owner of a pair of xedos rear straps (& some door panel clips foir a rainy day). the arms were totally different (but easily swapped) but the the catch assembly was a perfect match. even better was the fact that rather than using a nylon pinch block , the xedos item uses stainless sprung rollers , thus eliminating the wear which caused them to need replacing.the only other thing i did was to "open up" the gap between the top & bottom halves of the strap itself (with a screwdriver) to increase the tension on the catch. i hate thing's that don't work as they should so all in all this was a very cheap & satisfying repair to an annoying problem.