Belna Saloon Door Locks

[donw]

James Parry is restoring a Belna Saloon for me and there do not appear to be any internal door locking latches. 

Does anyone have photos of the door lock mechanism or know if they did not lock?

Don

[simonandjuliet]

If you get stuck , there is a Belna that lives not far from me, I could check it out for you

[frankxhv773t]

There doesn't seem to be any obvious sign of door locks in these pictures of a Belna for sale in New South Wales some time ago.

[brian]

Possibly with the eye of faith on the rear door?

[Kari]

I am sure you will find that the Belna has internal door locks, but not on the driver's door. Once you have access to the mechanism you will see the attachment for the lever is a brass part with a square recess. There the lever is attached by a M4 screw. The lock on the picture is not Augusta but very close so.

And the internal locks do not prevent doors coming open going fast round corners! Ha!

Regards

Karl

[ben]

Having just started restoring my (ex Israel via ebay!!!) Augusta I am very much looking forward to making the doors fly open as I hurtle through Chepstow and up the Wye valley.

[frankxhv773t]

Reviewing my pictures in light of Karl's post you can just see the lock on the inside of the rear door showing just ahead of the passenger seat back.

[Kari]

Well, in the 50+ years driving my Augusta, I've had a few incidents of rear doors coming open, all without damage except one way back in 1962.

Four up in the Augusta, we were driving home at a good clip on a lone country road in the middle of the night as the left rear door opened and disappeared in the night. Althought I stopped immediatly it was difficult to find the location of the incident and as the road was elevated in relation to the country left and right it was difficult to put the light from the headlamps in good use. Anyway, it took close to a half hour to find the door in the darkness. Both the brass hinge pins and the cable were broken and the window frame distorted. Lesson learned!

Regards  Karl

[davidwheeler]

This used to happen to me in the Aprilia but then I had it welded up wso that it no longer flexed...   I do keep the doors locked though.

[donw]

As can be  seen in the photo's the belna door locks are nothing like the illustration in the Belna Handbook that seems to be a copy of the Augusta one. Unlike the Italian ones they rely on an over centre pin popping into the bottom of the lock and jamming the mechanism . Italian locks are completely different in size & shape, as are the complete door tops and winder mechanisms so swapping to Italian parts wont work , unfortunately these French ones are made of very poor quality mazak & crumble.   

So the only solution seems to be to make new ones.

If anyone with a Belna is interested in having new ones please let me know