I recently purchased a used paird of upper doors with sliding windows for my TJ. The one latch will not spring closed (and hold) correctly. I contacted Bestop and they said that the sell entire doors only--no replacement parts.

Now my question is has anybody performed any maintenance on sliding upper windows? I'd like to remove the faulty latch and try to repair it; however the latch is apparently screwd to the window with boltsscrews that require some sort of security bit. (They're a five pointed bolt head with a prong sticking up in the middle.) Is it easy to get a bit to use to remove this latch? Has anyone taken one of these latches apart before? My theory is that 1) the spring is broken, 2) the spring has slipped out of position, or 3) one of the pins that holds the spring is broken.

Suggestions greatly appreciated!!!

I would say get a dremel with a pointed bit on it, and try to grind down the center pin. I have something at work like this, and I keep forgetting to take my dremel in to try. Let me know how it works.

you can go to advanced or something along those lines and get the torqux thing. just look for the one that has the niple thing. i found them before. just never baught them.

They only have the 6 point torx security bits. I need the 5 point style.

The repairs have been completed. I'll try to give you a step by step, but I probably should have taken pictures. The big brown truck arrived this afternoon with my 5 point hollow security bit set: $9.99 plus $8.99 S&H. This was the cheapest I could find. The blasted electronics company, from whom I bought the bits, included two of their catalogues (each of which was at least two times heavier than the total weight of the bit set.) So I figured I payed about $7.00 for catalogues that I'll have no use for, unless I decided to go into computer repair.

I tried a couple of the bits in the screw head until I found the correct one. And yes, the correct one was part of the set, amazingly. I removed the latch from the window and took it inside the house to work on it. The part of the latch that you depress pivots on two plastic nipples (one on each side), but would not spring back into place after being depressed. I carefully pryed the nipples out of the plastic holes they were seated in, and didn't manage to break anything!!!

Then I saw what a lousy design (or should I say, cheap) that latch was. It worked simply by bending one piece of plastic against another while depressing. Anyway, the one piece broke off. However, it couldn't have been a more advantageous break as far as repairs were concerned.

I bought a $3.99 assortment of 200 springs at Harbor Freight. (Home Depot has the exact same set for $8.99.) There wasn't a large area inside the latch for a spring to fit, and I was worried about it slipping out of position once the latch was put back together. I finally decided on about a one inch coil spring (probably 1/4 or 3/8 in diameter) and tried to squeeze it in and was having a little difficulty. Then I looked at the latch again and realized that there were two approximately 3/8 inch long plastic tabs on the one piece. The first two coils of the spring slipped conveniently behind those tabs and held the rest of the spring in place (at least for the time being) with no need of squeezing or cramped in fingers holding it in place. I put the latch back together (again without breaking the plastic) . . . and it worked!!! The spring didn't provide a lot of pressure, but it doesn't have to.

I put the latch back on the window, slid the window shut, and it snapped into place and held!

Glad you were able to get it fixed.
I hate when cheap, cheesey designs are mfg'd to be non-repairable. I wonder what the purpose of the tamper-resistant fasteners is?

FYI

Since you mentioned Harbor Freight; (possibly my favorite store), they sell a security bit set with at least 30 different bits. I can't remember what I pair for it but I bought it on sale and I know it wasn't much; under $10 I think.