Securing Drawers and Doors in Footloose
When Footloose was converted in 1986, all of the drawers were
installed on metal tracks with ball bearing rollers. While this makes the drawers
easy to use, it also makes them prone to open themselves every time you drive
Footloose around a curve. In order to keep them closed, Jim Williams used a
nylon "grabber" type catch that has a spring loaded "over center"
latching mechanism that I had never seen before. They work extremely well but
after 15 years, they are beginning to break and the springs in the latching
end are beginning to fail.
After visiting all of the local sources plus a number of online
cabinet supply outfits, I had just about given up on locating suitable replacements
when It finally occurred to me to look closely at one of the latches to see
if it had a part number or manufacturer's name on it.
Viola!!... they had the word "Southco" on one side of the latching
mechanism.
A web search on "Southco" turned up both the manufacturer
and the latch that I needed.
Note that they make these with three different levels pull up
force (3lb, 5lb and 20lb).
I chose the 5lb because I felt the 3lb would be too little to hold heavy drawers
and the wife may have trouble getting drawers open if I used the 20lb version.
The web site above list's nationwide dealers and the quantities
they have in stock on real time basis. The latches are not cheap at $3.50 each/quantity
of 10 but they work very nicely and the original latches on Footloose lasted
for 15 years before they started failing.
Note that these latches are primarily intended for cabinet doors
but they obviously work very well for drawers also.