A very long piece of string -that frequently unravels.
Last major job before the MOT is to sort the doors out. We've had all sorts of problems with them. They're not the original doors from the car & we've cut & repositioned the hinges a couple of times but they're not right. The 2 hinges don't line up. They're not sitting completely vertically. So when you open the door, one of them is under tension & after half a dozen openings, the hinge pins start to work their way out.
I copied PantherShaun's idea & bought some self aligning hinges from Ebay, as fitted to the back doors of Moggy Minor vans & Travellers & Mini vans. They have a brass ball joint in the middle which takes up any mis alignment. But they're very narrow so would sit right on the very outside lip of the door. That'd mean cutting a section out of the inside of the door & strengthening it with angle iron & trying to spread the load down the length of the door. A lot of work & hard to explain. Shaun's reversed his doors, so the hinges are at the back, which presumably works better.
So after sitting & looking at them yesterday, I've decided to stick with the originals. I've just phoned Kris at Pop Browns & ordered new stainless steel hinge pins. Loony's Dad's got his lathe up & running now, so I'll ask him very nicely to machine new lugs for the pins to sit in. Then we can tack weld the doors in the right position, cut the ends off the existing hinges, (Pop hinges stand out about 2" from the bodywork), & weld the new pin/lug assemblies in place. Sounds a bit drastic, but the easiest way to do it.
Once the doors open & close O.K, I've got modern "bear claw" latches to fit, as well as repositioning the interior handles, (the seating position means they're right where my knee rests). I've got a couple of spare doors I can canibalise for repair sections.
Finally we need to rebuild the bodywork around the door openings. The doors we're using came from Ebay & have been chopped by the previous owner by 4". Our roof is chopped by 3", so we've got a 1" gap to fill above them. The side windows look more in proportion to the cab though, as well as these doors being in better nick than the originals.
We have a year from the date we passed the SVA to get all the registration paperwork finished. That puts it at the 9th of April.
