Sliding vehicle door

In a vehicle body having a door opening defined by longitudinally spaced body pillars and a door for selectively opening and closing the door opening, means for mounting the door comprising:

• a guard beam mounted in the door and effective to reinforce the door and transmit force applied against the door to the body pillars, the guard beam having a pair of integral longitudinally extending vertically spaced flanges at the upper and lower edges thereof, a pair of extruded carriage members, each extruded carriage member having flanges for slidably capturing the flanges of the guard beam to support the door and permit longitudinal fore and aft sliding movement of the door on the extruded carriage members between a normal position on the carriage member cooresponding to door closed position and an open position, a pair of hinge arms each being associated with one of the extruded carriage members and each having one end pivoted to one of the body pillars and the other end pivoted to the associated extruded carriage member to permit movement of the extruded carriage member and the door between a closed position closing the door opening and an open position in which the extruded carriage members are moved laterally outboard of the door opening, a first latch means acting between one of the hinge arms and the guard beam and including hook means carried on the hinge arm and slot means in the guard beam, the hook means normally extending into the slot means to lock the door from sliding movement and being withdrawn from the slot means to permit sliding movement when the hinge arm and carriage member reach their relative pivotal positions in which the carriage member and door are moved fully laterally outboard of the door opening, and second latch means acting to prevent lateral inboard movement of the door until the door has been moved on the carriage member to its normal position thereon, said latch means including a spring biased latch lever which is normally engageable in aligned apertures of one of the carriage members and its associated hinge arm to thereby prevent pivoting movement of the carriage member on the hinge arm, and an abutment mounted on the door and engageable with the spring biased latch lever to move the spring biased latch lever to its unlatched position whenever the sliding movement position of the door corresponds to the door closed position on the carriage members.