Hello,
after a week of standing under a tarpaulin in the pouring rain, I've now replaced my old "super-flexible" doors with ones that have frames instead of rust... In case anybody's thinking of having ago at this themselves, it's actually not that hard (as long as you've got somebody to help get the doors back on the hinges). The hinges I've used here are the Britpart ones - I've read on some forums that these are stiff and poorly made, but mine are fine - the only issues are that they're thinner than the old Td5 hinges, so require more packing out shims to align the doors correctly and shorter bolts to hold the mirrors on. I sprayed mine with galvanising spray and there's no rust after a week of constant rain!
1:
The J-clips had rusted away,
so the bolts just turned | 2:
Easier than drilling the bolts out,
just angle-grind through the hinge | 3:
Now free, you can see the
mess behind the hinge | 4:
Fishing rust out of the
bulkhead with a magnet to
clear the drain hole | 5:
The old passenger door
looked like a grenade had gone
off inside it!
|
6:
One door off, anti-rust sprayed
inside the bulkhead and red
oxide on the outside | 7:
Fit the new J-clip bolts by jamming
a screwdriver in the clip and easing
it through the central hole, then use
a second screw-driver to lever
it down into place
| 8:
The passenger door just went
straight on... | 9:
Although the catch/lock is in a
completely different place (the
ply is only temporary) | 10:
The door tie-rod is pretty
easy to fit, although I'd lost
the pins! |
11:
The bottoms of the "new" doors
were pretty scrappy, so I rivetted
on some "bling" (as my gf called
them!) to hold them together | 12:
The drivers door didn't fit nicely,
as it was too low at the rear... | 13:
...because I'd had to rebuild/weld
the top hinge position and had
got the holes slightly wrong... | 14:
...but by elongating the bottom holes
by about 5mm... | 15:
...the door came up into position
and the job's a good'n  |
I know chequer-plate isn't to everybody's taste, but I'm using it to cover various damage and dents - I'm going to repaint the whole thing green next, including the chequer-plate, so hopefully the whole "pimp my ride" look will only be short-lived
Cheers,
Paul
