It's no lie that when you deviate from the plans, the time involved goes up exponentially! Had I gone with the standard seat back brace, between it and the latch, it probably would have taken just a few hours. Since I changed the seat back brace, I'm guessing I'm at least at 50 hours of work modifying everything to make it work. It'll be worth it in the end, and I actually enjoy having to do more than just follow that plans at times, but it's a lot of extra work!
I wasn't sure how I wanted to make the standoff for the left side teleflex cable. At first I thought of just doing something super quick and basic, but I want it to look somewhat finished in the end and not like an afterthought. Now that I'm done, I can think of a number of ways I could have made it better of course.
I went through a bunch of paper templates and finally came up with something workable. I made the top portion out of fairly thick sheet, which was kind of a nightmare to bend well without a metal brake.
I made the bottom portion out of thinner material, which was much easier to work with. By the time it's all put together I think it'll be plenty stiff.
I wanted to use existing hardware or rivets in the bulkhead if at all possible. The top brace is bolted to the bulkhead using two bolts in the latch setup. The bottom brace will be attached with a couple of rivets used in the latch mechanism as well.
To give it a bit of a finished look and stiffen it up a little more, I made a cover that will attach with screws.
On the right side, the cable has to attach higher up and on the opposite side of the pivot of the latch hook. That puts the hole in the bulkhead quite a bit higher and in kind of an awkward location (it has to go through the thick piece of angle on the back side of the bulkhead. Figuring out exactly where to drill the hole was easier said than done since the clevis for the cable moves through quite a bit of an arc.
I drilled the hole through the bulkhead, then hit it with the dremel until it was opened up enough (I think). Next up will be figuring out the standoff for this side. I think it'll be far simpler though. Because the cable sets up so high, I'll probably just make a super simple angle bracket that is screwed to the seat back brace. I did some quick tests and everything works pretty well. The cable has a little slack in it though, so the throw on the right side is a little less than the left side (because the left side hook action is directly connected to the handle, but by the time it transfers through all of the connections of the cable it's a little more sluggish and limited on the right side). I think once I get the right side mounted solidly, the range of movement for the hook will be enough to clear the canopy connection and also lock it closed.
