DONT REMOVE LATCHES

[garettb16]

hey guys just writing to explain my day,

ive been drilling out the bolts which hold the 2 latches in my hardtop above my head. a few months ago i had a great idea to swap the latches over with a spare set which were in better condition than the ones on my hardtop.

the passenger side came off relatively easy, few grunts and groans but i got them undone to find they had been soaked in locktite before being put in, from mazda factory i assume. i got to the drivers side got it about 1 and half full turns and became quite hard to turn. i then managed to strip the philips head off 2 of the screws. which is allways embarrassing. when explaining a problem but its done. so now i have 2 bolts which i cant loosen or tighten they are about 1mm from being tight against the latch.

i drove it and it rattled like sh*t. so i managed to squeeze a piece of plastic in there to stop the vibration which worked for a while but it came loose and fell out after going over a few small bumps in the road. koni yellows dont help either.
so today i got a screw/bolt remover which has a small drill bit and a funny tapered looking drill bit which you use after drilling a small hole in the bolt and it pulls it out. i broke both bolts doing this. but eventually managed to get it to work. i didnt destroy the thread!!! and i have now the new latch fitted when if i had have known i would have just left them. as they were fine.

DONT CHANGE THEM!
unless you need to of course.

[PUR157]

You sound like you had fun... did you at least fit in some stress release in the form of a big hammer and bigger breaker bar?

I wish my latches were like yours... one of the screws holding them on unscrews itself

[garettb16]

maybe try a spring washer under it. i am anti locktite but that would work too

[StanTheMan]

sounds like you had bad luck there.

I've changed the latches & latch covers recently. Because the latches didn't lock. so I removed the latch covers & swapped them around. Fortunately I had none of the misshaps you experienced. I just lost some of the little circlips which need to be undone. but thankfully I managed to get 2 good working latches out of the 2 pairs I had.

[Okibi]

Yup, I had similar dramas but managed to just get the screws out without breaking anything, i've since replaced them with new items so that next time it's not so bad.

Guess that's something we've both learnt from owning vintage cars, when ever you work on the car always replace old fixings with new ones.

[garettb16]

even the design is sh*t..

they should have used allen keys or security bolts like whats holding the hook for the latches under the sun visors.
having soft philips head screws on something so tight with locktight just seems silly to me.

however i prob should have used an impact screwdriver to get them half loose then follwed them out with a normal screwdriver..

anyways. just happy ive got them back on and working without stuffing my hardtop!!.

[Benny]

You should have heated them up first, then the Loctite would have loosened and it should then be relatively easy to get them out.

Try and undo a loctited 2mm screw out of a metal block, like I used to do with model helicopters.
You soon learn that heat is your friend.