Google for "garden gate latch" and you'll see the gate latch we have. It's sold by the hundreds of thousands worldwide under different brands. I bought mine in the UK through B&Q (Blooma brand) and it rusted the same year we put it in. On the outside of the gate the ring falls off frequently. I've unscrewed it, and here's what I see:
The clip can be pushed back over the larger ring assembly to hold it into the collar, but it barely holds it. Any decent pull of the gate to close it would pull the ring off the square shaft again, with the clip being the thing that didn't hold.
Can I replace that clip with an e-clip? The minimum pack of e-clips I can buy is the same cost as buying the whole latch again?
Or can I do some secondary fixing to hold the clip in place (in the wee groove in the ring assembly)? Like a spot weld. Or a nylon zip-tie? The clip feels thin – a weld might even deform it.
What about drilling the spindle and putting some form of split-clip through? I have old spindles so have room to experiment.
I don't want to replace everything with the galvanized edition cos that's 3x the price and I've no guarantee that the same ineffective clip isn't part of the assembly.
Advice?
Best Answer
If there is a groove in the collar, you could use a snap ring or an e-clip. You could also use a push-on retaining ring, sometimes called an knob spring or an internal tooth retainer.