Just an FYI. Mustang door latch strikers will NOT work on an 88 TC. The Mustang pins are longer and bigger in diameter than the T-Bird pins. T-Bird- .450"od, Mustang- .490"od. Approximately 1/8" longer. :frown: Now I guess I need to find an acceptable substitute for the plastic sleeves on my original pins.
I've got door strikers on my car from Advance Auto. They are Dorman I believe. Bolted right up no problem.
Probably could have. But Advance is half a mile from my house and they had them in stock. So laziness prevailed.
So a few years ago I spent some crazy money on NOS door strikers for the ‘84. These are the ones without the metal surround, just the striker bolt with sleeve and permanent washer. Installed fine, no issues. A week later I opened the driver’s door and the grey plastic sleeve disintegrated. A day or two later the passengers side did the same.
Went to the parts store, got two new Dorman strikers with the metal surround and replaceable sleeves, and all is well. They’re technically not correct for the car but they work great, they are future proof, and they proved that sometimes NOS is not the way to go.
There are two different sizes for Fords. Our cars did indeed use the shorter ones.
To keep weight down, no doubt.
Well, a small amount of research on my part would have quickly told me that Mustang strikers are different than T-Bird, Cougar, Taurus, etc. I compared part numbers on Rock Auto and found 2 different numbers for the Dorman strikers. Mustang striker bolts have SAE thread, T-Bird's are metric. Ordered a pair on Amazon and other than the py black oxide finish on the support they work great.