Went to the local welding shop, paid $2 for a 4' piece of 1.5"x1/8" flat stock, on to the hardware store for $2 worth of stainless machine screws, nuts and lockwashers. Put the abrasive blade on the table saw made a few miter cuts(clean ALL sawdust out of saw and disconnect from dust collector). I clamped the pieces in place as I went. The piece on the right took some.... well in wood working we call it "pocketknife fitting", it had to be notched around the stationary part of the latch. Then when everything fit like I wanted it to I used a spring loaded centerpunch to mark hole locations, drilled some 3/16" holes put in the screws. Last step was to widen the cut in the stationary part of the latch to accomadate the extra material, just a few strokes with a sharp file was all it took as the original fit was quite sloppy.
Finishing the project will be a bit more involved, remove the added parts, cut off the old hinge components and grind smooth, and take all the paint off the end panel. Weld the new parts and new hinges in place then paint. I'm hoping to just paint the end cap but it may be time for a fresh coat overall by then.
Next mod, charcoal basket. Using the Minion Method I've been getting 3 hours at a clip on a (smaller than Weber's) chimney of Kingsford and 2 small 12" splits of wood cut into four chunks each. With the new oxygen control and a proper container for fuel I'm hoping to double that to 6hrs between refuels.