Technical 31 coupe trunk latch , bear claw

So the doors are done on the coupe. So it was time to do the trunk .
Now the trunk was a rumble seat lid that was in poor condition, and then it was reskinned by someone ..... with that said , I plan on replacing it all together, but for the the meantime, I need a latch and a handle..
I wasn't concerned with the appearance of the outcome .

 

Here is the the latch ***embly I got off ebay for around $12 . The handle I had left over from another model a I had. .

I went over several approaches , and decided I should have got a different latch.. but , oh well

I decided to make a little box for the latch and then weld that to the deck lid

 

How I made the box

 

The square tubing I used was 2"x 1" x .065 thick( 16ga i think....

 

Now time to install the box I made into the trunk lid... the lid was heavily covered in bondo and little attention was payed to the rusty/ thin metal ... so wish me luck ... lmao...

 

I took more pictures but for some reason I cant find them ... ??? .

I weled on a thin strip of flat stock to help reinforce the latch area .

I had aslo drilled a hole a for the handle, prior to making all this and but then noticed it would interfere with the latch . So I drilled a second hole ...

All that's left now is to figure out the handle to latch linkage and install the striker on the ch***is...