I haven't had the opportunity to compare the VW model to the originals, however, I have a spare Cessna latch awaiting a test I wanted to try. It seems to me, the weak point in the design is the cheesy pot metal spring holder/button that's incorporated into the design.
Usually, (let's not use
that word) at least in the broken latches I've looked at, it's the button that fails, not the latch itself.
I wanted to fabricate a replacement button using a piece of round stock brass, drilling a hole in the bottom to accept the spring and then, drilling a perpendicular hole through the brass stock to insert a cold rolled pin, in order to keep the buttom secured in the handle and not flying across the cabin. The finishing touch would be to round the head/thumb area off to match the original. It seems as though this would work, but as I said, I haven't tried it yet.
Here's a rudimentary diagram of what I had in mind:
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Linked Image]
