The round piece that you see below with a socket head cap screw sticking out of it (white arrow) is 1/2" diameter mild steel that I made real quick to see if this was all going to work or not. I drilled a 3/16" diameter hole through the center of it and then drilled and tapped a 6-32 thread in the side too clamp the rod and copper piece together. Notice the door latch rod (to the right) which is just visible. I mounted that rod in it's original location on the latch (when I first received the body, this is where it attached) with a cotter pin. I drilled a small hole through the rod (the rod is bent at a right angle at the bottom and then goes through the hole) and used a washer and cotter pin to hold it in place. The hole that the rod is in now use to be one of the two screw holes that held the new arm in place. By using the cotter pin on one hole and leaving the bolt on the other hole, the new arm should stay put and work fine.

After hooking everything back up to try my new pieces out, it finally worked!!

I didn't need the rod coming from the solenoid to be as long now so I cut it where you see the blue mark. I installed the door panel just to make sure everything still worked and it did. Well after about eight to ten hours of extra work, I was back in business. Now it's time to start working on installing my running boards and rear fenders. Boy am I glad that's done with....
 

Oooohh.....Chrome!

Now that the doors open and close properly, it's time to start putting the trunk back together. What I have below are my deck lid hinges and latch striker that I took to the chrome shop. The hinges came with the car and are made out of steel, but they were starting to rust after two plus years with nothing on them, so what better way to make them look better than to treat them too a little corrosion preventative. The striker (which mates with the latch assembly on the trunk floor) is also made out of steel (which is a custom piece that I made awhile back) was in the box of items to get chromed too. I had a company called MJB Plating in Rialto, Ca. do the plating and I'm pretty happy with the results. I do have to say though, I'm still in "sticker shock" on how much it costs to do chrome plate these days. I guess I'm still use too the prices that were back in the days of my last car that I built. 

There is one nice thing about having chrome in place of polished aluminum, and that's the low maintenance involved to keep it looking good. It takes just minutes to wipe chrome off but not for aluminum, that's a whole different ball game. A quick wipe with some Windex and the chrome is ready to go.