Doors
I basically followed
the instructions for assembling the door hinges except I went to the
hardware store and bought some brass inserts for the top part of the hinge
and some hardened bolts for the assembly. Right now, the door does not
swing that freely because of a slight misalignment between the top and
bottom bolts. I will need o fix that a little later with a reamer.
For now, it is tight enough to use to align the cowl bar inside the car.
I also assembled the
door locks and reinforcing bar according to the instructions. This
requires a little trimming of the fiberglass edge of the door as shown
above. There is a left and a right frame and lock so you have to pair
them up correctly. Also, I trimmed the bolts on the screws that hold
the lock on. They stuck too far out the back and looked like they
might interfere with the locking mechanism.
I loosely attached the
hinge to the door as shown.
With the doors wedged
into the body opening roughly in place, I clamped the hinge to the cowl bar
and then drilled pilot holes through the feet of the cowl bar. I used clecos to hold each one in place as I drilled the others. I didn't
sweat getting the doors exactly lined up. There is lots of room for
adjustment both on the hinge attachment to the cowl bar as well as there the
hinge bolts to the door.
Once the cowl bar was
bolted to the floor, I installed the threaded rods to brace the bar to the
firewall. I installed two of these at each end rather than one in the
middle. I did this so I could hid the nuts under to hood flanges and
because I plan to install the reservoirs for the brakes and clutch in the
center of the firewall.
Here's a picture of
the door help in place with tape and spacers. With the door positioned
like this, I drilled the feet of the cowl bar to the frame and tapped the
hole for the bolts. Once I remove the body, I will weld spacers to the
frame underneath the feet to take up the space between the body and the
frame.
Next, I removed the
door for access and marked the door frame for trimming so the hinge can open
all the way.
In this picture, I
don't have the trim line all the way over to the edge of the body but that's
where it will end up. I am now ready to drill the hinges to the cowl
bar.
Using a combination of
long drill bits and extenders, I was able to drill the mounting holes
without taking the cowl bar out. I left the clamps in place while I
drilled them out to the proper size and installed some hardened bolts and
nuts to the hinge. After removing the clamps. I had to adjust the
hinges a little to get the right fit along the front edge of the door.
I also loosed up the door as well and tweaked it a little until I was happy
with the fit. It's important to get the door in the right position
before installing the lock posts.
I think this is a very
important step to getting a good fit on the door. The post needs to be
in the proper position to hold the door off the rear part of the door
opening and hold it close to the body so it won't vibrate. To get the
right position marked, I took a short piece of tubing the same size as the
door post and clamped it in the door lock mechanism. Then, while
holding the door in the proper closed position, I drew a circle around the
tubing. After marking the center, I drilled the hole out to the proper
size for the post bolt.
I trimmed the spacer
to fit between the fender well and the door frame and bolted everything up.
A little tweaking is all that's necessary to get the door to clamp the post
and hold the door in the right position.
The pictures show the
left door but I did essentially the same thing to the right door. The
right door was a little more of a challenge because it is warped slightly
which required me to pick a good in-between mounting location. The
body guy will have to fix the rest when he gets the body to finish.
Also, I did not do
anything to set the door gaps. I will let the body guy do all that so
he can use the products he wants to use beneath the paint job.
The next step is to
mount the rear bumpers. That work begins on the next page.
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