Oddball sliding screen doorhardware

Question

Customer brought in a sliding screen door missing most of the hardware. It is unlike anything I have seen before. I have only the handle and the spring/latch. Apparently the handle and missing latch apparatus do not connect as there are no pass through holes. The spring/latch, shown sitting on top of the frame, fits inside the aluminum frame. The latch apparatus apparently slides vertically up/down within the frame. Again, there are no screw holes on the latch side of the door to indicate that a latch was ever attached to the fram. Somehow, the sliding latch must have been attached in the rectangular hole in the fame. Please let me know if you need any additional pictures or information.

Mike D.

Tom · Accepted Answer

Wow, this is a weird setup. It looks like whoever installed this door just kind of put whatever on the frame. This is definitely not how the door was designed to work. Unfortunately, I can't really say how it was meant to work originally without seeing the old hardware. There are just too many unknown elements for me to make a reliable recommendation. Plus, I can't say for sure if the original installers had their reasons for using this setup. For all I know the original hardware wouldn't work in the frame and they had to do it this way. I just can't be sure.

Is there any brand name or marking on the screen door that might give us a clue what it used originally?