split side doors

[Eric von Kleist]

For now, I'm going to lock the front door from the inside and exit through the rear door. I bought a stainless steel 3/8" x 4" eyebolt today. I'm going to mount it in the rear door next to the paddle handle on the outside, then drill a hole in the handle so that I can padlock it shut. Not elegant, but functional. I like the design the Florida SAE bus has for the front door, and may try to copy that in a similar fashion. Eyebolts can be pried open, but, heck, anybody who wants into my bus that badly can just smash a window and get in as easily, so it's probably not a real probability that anyone is going to take the time to pry open an eyebolt to unlock my bus.

[captainkf]

For my rear door I Have a latch and eye bolt also a peice of angle iron cut the length of the handle. It is attached with 3 bolts that run through the door and are double nutted on the back (inside the bus). I then drilled a hole in through the bottom of the handle and the angle iron. With a bit of shaping I can run a master lock through the handle and the iron. If one were to try to loosen the bolts they just spin forever. Someone could grind the lock off, but overall it is the strongest system I could come up with.

So I have two locks on the back door that are keyed the same.

So far, so good.

-Richard

[Ryan Grimm]

OK, just had an IDEA for the door locks.....

Use a T-handle garage door lock. Then use the garage door mechanism that engages the sliding bars on your garage doors to connect to a couple lock rods...I'll check the local Home Depots and Lowes and give part numbers.

Basically, the T-handle goes on one of the doors. If you have both doors that swing out, one swings out/one in, doesn't matter, they should both work for you.

The T-handle goes on one door. From that T-handle, there is a bellcrank of sorts that throws a couple rods. One rod goes UP, the other DOWN. They slide in brackets (heavy corner irons or a couple chunks of drilled angle iron will do), so that when the T-handle is turned, the rods goes up (down) into a couple drilled holes (one in the floor/step, the other UP into another bracket)

If you look at a roll-up garage door from the inside, you'll get my drift. Just turn your head 90 degrees to see how it would work for the bus doors....instead of side-to-side, it would be up-and-down.

I sure wish I knew how to draw this out to post here....guess I'll make one someday and take photos......once I figure out how to get them from the camera to the 'puter, that is!