How about shaving off the plastic at the melted parts and then drill a small hole in the posts, then using washers and screws to mount the mechanism into place?

 

you might be better off oging to a junkyard and pulling the inside door panel off a wrecked truck which has a working latch and just putting that in there

 

Either or are good fixes.

 

Sorry so long. Computer down. Thanks for the input. Will let you know what happens when i figure it out.

 

So, with a combination of very small screws and washers and some epoxy along with three 1/4 ' push nuts I believe I have it secured well enough that the darned thing won't come apart without taking half of the door with it. Surprisingly, I managed to do it all without breaking anything or having screws sticking out through the other side. if it ever breaks again i'll just take the damn doors off and weld crash bars across the openings. thank you all.

 

LOL on the crash bars! NP, curt, always glad to be of assistance.