Hi Rob,

 

When I installed the Hartwell latch on my Legacy, it looked like something that would easily last the life of the airplane.  After three years and 300 tach hours, it was nearly worn out and close to failure.  There is a hinge pin that runs perpendicular to the latch.  The ends of the hinge pin go through drilled holes in the flanges at each side of the latch.  The holes had elongated and nearly worn through to the edge of the flange.  Maybe it was just a bad latch to start with, but I'm glad I discovered the problem before it failed in flight. 

 

I had installed it with rivets.  After drilling out the rivets, I wished I had used screws instead. 

 

Dennis

Legacy, 380 hours