Hi, Vanagon lovers!

Behold the tale of a very minor engineering triumph:

The sliding door, insecurely closed by a latter-generation family
member, opened while SO was negotiating a left turn at a busy
intersection, dumping a vacuum cleaner on the roadway.  When SO reported
the event, I heard a tiny threat of future "Vanagon must go because this
is unsafe."  Within 24 hours a similar event happened to me.  I smelled
a distant lynch mob.

Today, in full flight from dreaded Bill Paying, I wandered the aisles of
Hechinger's Hardware, selecting chain (like, 1/4" interior width; flat
links (no twist to 'em); welded) and sheet metal screws (package says
"oval head"; looks like what I thought you called "pan head"; 12x1-1/4).

Safely home, I drilled & screwed a screw in the left edge of the sliding
door (near the top) and, with the door closed, a screw a couple of
inches to the left of that screw.  I cut off a 3-link length of the
chain, finessed either end over the head of each screw, and voila! the
door will not by any means slide open when chain in place.  Especially
since I repeated the process some 11" lower (just above the grab handle)
and down about a foot off the floor (this one takes 5 links because of
the offset of the interior of the body).

The major imperfection noted as yet is that if you try to open with
chains in place, you are stuck and have to go out to slam door to allow
enough slack to get chain off screw head.  So I just put a Phillips
handy just in case, so you can remove the screws to open from inside if
this happens....

Undoubtedly there is an easier & more elegant way to fix the problem,
but for me this was not bad.

Byron Spears
Clinton, MD
87 GL
63 Chevy II
86 Maxima