Hey Guys, I just thought I'd post a couple of pics of the temporary fix I rigged up when my door latch wouldn't latch. Please keep in mind this was only a temp fix so that I could close the door to get home and to work.
In the area circled in red, there's supposed to be a spring that pushes that little arm on the left when the latch engages. It pushes to the left when the latch makes contact with the striker and the spring forces it back to the right, in order to allow the door to stay latched. As you can see, my spring doesn't exist. It was rusted and just feel apart.
In a jam (no pun intended), I had to find a way to get the door to latch.
The arm that I mentioned extends to the other side of the latch, so after several failed attempts to make a new reverse type spring to replace the one that broke, I decided to jam one in the other end of the arm (circled in green). I only needed it to work once, so that I could latch the door until I received the new part.
Whether or not it would have allowed the door to be opened and closed more than once, I don't know. I left all of the rods disconnected so that I didn't open it by mistake which is a total bone headed thing I might have done.
I can confirm the spring was still in place when I removed the latch so it may have worked. There's not much holding it in place though so...
I know this goes without saying but just in case, if you're in this situation, don't the door panel back on when you attempt to get the door to close if you leave the handle rods off like I did, because I don't "think" you can take the panel off when the door is closed and obviously you'll need to get your hands in there to open the door to install the new latch mechanism.
I installed the new latch and everything is back to normal finally.