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SURMOD
1930 Hudson Super 8
Rebuilding the Door Handle
When I bought the car the drivers door handle was not in the door, but I did see a box of several door handles and later I managed to piece together something that I thought might work.
It's difficult to tell why the door handle broke, but the square shaft going through, was in two pieces and the casting actually broke in half and someone had tried to epoxy it together.
Since the assembly was pot metal, welding the pieces back together wasn't an option. The inner tumbler assembly was useless and couldn't be restored so it was determined that the handle assembly would be functional, but the keyed portion would not be working. Fortunately the end was salvageable so it was saved and in the end it was epoxied into the appropriate position making it look like it was original.
I decided the only way to hold everything together so it would be strong and reliable was to bolt everything together. I cut the head off a 5/16" bolt and welded it to the square portion of the assembly which slides into the square hole in the door mechanism that opens and closes the door. The nut at the other end had to be modified to slide into the handle portion of the assembly so I ground off all the sides and made it round.
This picture shows the nut with the sides ground off being held by a set of hemostats. In this picture it is positioned on the outside exactly where it will be on the inside. It sliding in from the left, to the right where you can see the black mark, the inner diameter steps down. This shoulder will allow the two sections to be tightened together.
In the picture on the left you can see the rounded off nut at the top, coated in JB weld. It was then pulled through until it bottomed out and then the external nut was threaded down the threads to tighten it inside to assembly and weld it in place up against that shoulder, then let set over night.
Once the JB weld had set up, right about where the centre of that rounded off nut is, I drilled and taped it for a # 6 machine screw and then ground off the head, just to be sure it stayed put.
Next I cut off about 80 percent of the threaded portion. It was only needed to be that long to be able to seat that rounded off nut. Now that portion of the assembly is threaded in from the opposite end so only about a half inch of threads is needed.
Once again to be extra secure, I coated the threads with JB weld, then screwed the assembly together. Next I used JB weld to adhere the now fake keyhole on and then slid the assembly through the door and secured it with a machine screw from the inside of the door frame. I had to make a custom washer to go on before the machine screw to keep the whole door handle assembly from sliding out. The square portion of the handle has a threaded end to it for just this purpose.
Hopefully one day I will come across a working replacement handle/lock assembly. For now the door can be locked from the inside. The rear doors also lock. The front passengers side door has a fully functional locking assembly. However I don't have a key for it. So one day I intend to take that assembly out of the car and take it to a locksmith to have it rekeyed.
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