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Randy Pflanzer
Technology Professionals Consortium
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   What's New?
 
  02/01/13 - Reformatted web page.

 

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.