[andrewhush]

Originally Posted by WorldClassAccident

I have had some fun recently playing with gravity which has delayed any progress for a while. I have however managed to fit the metal door plates that Gary provided and test fitted the hinges. I now need to think how to get the hinges to be in the right position. Anyway, some photos and comments about them.

First, the cause of the delays


The door plate. This is for the front of the door so has a hole for the hinge. The rear plate was similar but without the hole.


Trial fit the hinge before fitting the plate



These simply bolt into place with a couple of penny washers to protect the bodywork



All looks very neat in the car


Until viewed from above when I realised the hinge actually stuck out of the body due to the angle of the door shuts. In the Scimi they were at 90 degrees to the car, in the G46 they are not.


This shows the hinges from inside the front wing positioned so that the bit of the hinge the door is fixed to is parallel with the side of the body (ie in the correct position) and you can see quite a gap between the hinge and the metal plate. I wonder if I could get some kind of wedge for that?


Anyway, took them all out and slapped some undercoat on them while I think about it.

Any suggestions of the door hinge angle are welcome. I was wondering about trying to bend the hinge a bit but it is 7mm steel and I don't want to unbend the existing bends or destroy the hinge pin which seems good at the moment.

Mucking about with my scimitar hinges today. One pin was stuck in the hinge arm and rotating in the bracket rather than the other way around. When I eventually got it apart a solution to WCA's dilemma above revealed itself. If you redrill the bracket where the white tippex dot is on the photos below the bracket can lie on the 45 degree angled panel with the arm pointing straight back. As long as the hinge pin is well forward of the shutline and is as close as possible to the inside face of the bodyshell, all parts of the door (especially the most forward edge) will open outward before swinging forwards so preventing it catching on the front wing.


Standard hinge


Redrill hole at the white dot


view from side


view from rear

I was going to make my support frame for the hinge brackets lie at right angles to the car centreline (as in the scimitar) but I might be changing to this idea