Pouring a soda bottle full of near boiling water on each of the locks worked great for me. Obviously not a good long term solution nor useful when out and about. Looking forward to hear what other solutions people come up with!
Yeah, boiling water would work once, if you already had your gear out of your truck. Like I said, in freezing moist air environments it’s the latch mechanism that fails, getting the barrel unlocked is the easy part. I was also concerned about how frozen the hinge itself was on the back door, I was seeing the panel flex at the hinge so I just stopped pulling.
Ruining my back panel wasn’t worth getting the stove out and making lunch on the mountain, so we went hungry but for snacks in the cab.
This is product oversight. A mechanism is needed that allows you to force release the latch and not rely on a spring that is frozen.
I’ll be buying a space heater to keep the back heated at home before heading out and a 20 volt battery powered heat gun, just so that I can access the back of my truck. Turns out butane lighters at freezing elevation are not enough.
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How is this working?
F-150’s have had lots of trouble with freezing door handles in their 2015 and up trucks. One of the fixes that is recommended is treating the latch with lithium grease. I wonder if it would work for this application too.
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Lithium grease sounds like a good idea.
Here in BC we went from warm and wet to COLD COLD COLD.
I use a small butane torch lighter. Just remember to keep it in your pocket. When it gets too cold - they don’t work.
I keep spraying with boeshield and/or the graphite stuff but it can only do so much.
just spit balling - how about a piece of rubber inner tube to cover the latch and keep water out? remove the latch and reinstall with rubber tucked between lock and panel to hold it in place? does anybody have a link to the latches on the southco site?
something like this would be good
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just went and measured and it’s a no go… but a cover like that would be perfect
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Grease would definitely keep water from freezing on the springs but when it heats up it would leak out the bottom and that’s another problem
My F-150 doorhandles came from the factory with a copious amount of what I think is white lithium grease. I haven’t had any issues with it leaking down onto the paint but that’s not to say it won’t happen with a GFC latch.
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only one way to find out… i’ll be the guinea pig
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If these fit our latches it would be a really easy retrofit. Need to confirm these are the correct size.
Looks like the cat’s meow.
Weird. The link is for a latch - not our latch. But, the pic is of a cover…
they don’t fit… I emailed southco if they do offer covers, crossing my fingers for a positive response. @Slowboater
I just went out and blasted the latches with compressed air and I’m amazed how much water was in there. I filled the pocket behind the keyhole and sprayed the spring on the handle with lithium grease. we’ll see how it goes
@the_philxx the entire latch is made from a “zinc alloy” no plastic
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my camper has these
same exact size different style
my google-fu turned up no cover for this size latch. i’ll go out on a limb here, if somebody were to find a manufacturer for 1200 pieces, that’s 200 campers, I’m sure they would sell
Hello,
One of the reasons we recommend Boeshield T-9 is because it can be used on plastics, vinyl, and rubber in addition to materials like steel. So if you are having an issue with the latch itself (not the key cylinder), then I would recommend spraying the inside of the latch to coat the spring mechanism on the lever:
Regularly lubricating the key cylinder, dust cover, and key does keep the latches functioning in cold conditions. But as some of you have noted, your latch mechanism may still freeze. This is to be expected when in environments with high levels of humidity and sub freezing temps. If such does happen, then we recommend using a quality de-icer to free up that which is frozen. I understand people don’t want to dicker with frozen latches while outside in the cold, but if you live in a cold environment, then you know this can happen to anything (vehicle door handles, windshields, vehicle tailgates, etc.) when the right conditions are present.
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I emailed Southco about an option like that for the locks used by GFC, they said they don’t make one.
I thought the same thing, I’ve since resorted to just leaving the ones I NEED to get into open…not just unlocked, but completely unlatched. I keep meaning to throw a jug of washer fluid in the cab to pour over the locks if I get locked out. Used to do that on the line trucks when the bin doors got gunked up.
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I think there should be a consideration for this type of latch:
We had these on the line trucks, the T gives leverage so it’ll never freeze you out. The lock tumblers are as Calder says. Those you just need to babysit.