Kernel, kernel, kernel… the answer to door problems is (almost always) kernel. I had never heard of this amazing piece of German engineering, critical to keeping owners from furiously slamming their doors. I may or may not have called a welding friend to add material to the latch in the are where it looked like it had warn away over time. I also may or may not have seen a kernel on a door latch in a CoupeKing restoration picture and asked Erik what that “thimble” like device was and where I could get one, sorry Erik.

Have you seen me?

The biggest problem the car had from purchase, and the easiest to fix (seemingly,) was the necessity to slam the doors to close them. I actually fractured the drivers side catch after loading it on the trailer after purchase (S***.)

Operating the latch by hand was quite difficult. So the first nice day after I got the car home I pulled the door card to inspect the latch to see if I could figure out what was causing the friction in the latch. I could see the caked on white lithium grease on the inside of the door, I wiped some excess off and added more while rotating the latch back and forth. I also sprayed the locking mechanism. This made both the latch and the lock function 1000x easier. The windows didn’t move too easily so they got some grease as well, also improved function exponentially. (No pics with the door apart, not thinking of the blog.) When I had passenger door card off I noticed the rust repair running the length of the door… Bummer. After greasing everything up and putting the doors back together the doors still would not close easily. I could see a notch on the door latch on both sides of the car where it looked like material had warn away over time and this was causing the latch to not engage the second click necessary for a tight seal. I thought about it and just before I had material welded on I took to the forum to see if there was any info, I had searched previously but couldn’t find anything on the subject (obviously didn’t look hard enough.) There it was! An old thread that had been brought back from the dead with all the pertinent kernel info, with part numbers ta boot!! So I got the parts and now the doors close as they should.

Pro tip: any time you need to pull your door card don’t attack the quarterlight window knobs with a flathead screwdriver, there is a small hole in the back of the knob so an allen key can be used to push the front cover off. Now I know too