Retrofitting locking latches

[Socal Tom]

I have the old school cam lock door latches like these.
https://bigwoodycampers.com/teardrop-camper-parts-and-accessories/teardrop-camper-door-handles

I've ordered these and they are in the mail, so they should arrive by the weekend.


The current door handle is mounted 1 1/2 inches from the door edge, so about 1 3/4 inches from the wall. I don't have dimensions, but I assume that the latch won't reach the wall. What are my options aside from drilling a new hole?
Thanks
Tom

[Dale M.]

Wait till new latches arrive, don't over think this..... And YES you may have to drill new hole or extend striker plate out from frame which you will hate as it will reach out and grab you ever chance it gets....

Dale

[Socal Tom]

Wait till new latches arrive, don't over think this..... And YES you may have to drill new hole or extend striker plate out from frame which you will hate as it will reach out and grab you ever chance it gets....

Dale

Too late, over thinking is well underway. It turns out that socal teardrops sells an interior latch that should be a perfect retrofit option for just a couple of dollars more. So I'm probably going to return what I ordered and get the other ones.
Here are the dimensional drawings for the standard ones and the socal ones.

Standard interior latch

VTS-215-3.jpg (39.6 KiB) Viewed 822 times

and the socal TD one

[Dale M.]

I like the way (not) the socal one lays out dimensions and you have to play the math/ruler game to figure out how far hole is for handle is from edge...

Dale

[Socal Tom]

I like the way (not) the socal one lays out dimensions and you have to play the math/ruler game to figure out how far hole is for handle is from edge...

Dale

It looks like both are made by alhansen. They are sold as cab locks. The drawings are from the Hansen site. But yeah, it looks like the socal ones will work with my hole location. The catch is that the socal ones need a "night lock pin" to lock.
Tom

[Socal Tom]

After thinking really hard about it, I decided to return the small ones and order the SoCal set. The install should be much easier and cleaner, though the price ends up about the same.

I'll post some pics once I get them.
Tom

[Socal Tom]

I got the socal latches yesterday. The bolted right up to the existing location, and work great. I just had to reverse the exterior handles for them to twist down, rather than up as I had them. First impressions are that the doors are sealing much better with these latches vs the cam style. The DS door always had a little daylight coming around the gaskets, but with these latches the daylight seems to be gone. it does take an extra push to get the latch to fully engage, but that's probably what's making the difference. I'm going to add some pulls on the inside to make it a little easier to pull shut from the inside.

These latches don't have a lock button like the others, but they have an extra pin that when shoved into a hole in the lock, will lock them from the inside. I already have slide bolts installed so I may just continue to use those.
Tom

[backstrap bandit]

Do they lock from outside with key

[Socal Tom]

Do they lock from outside with key

The standard door handles lock from the outside with a key.
Tom