Bit of a frustrating week on the doors, mirrors and side windows. All started off swimmingly well with the drivers door - all lined up, brackets working great to reinforce where the MR2 door skin is cut down and eaves protector plastic used to create a new base for the door.
Panel gaps not too bad and close to the original which left a lot to be desired I know!
These are the adjustable brackets I used to push out the lower outer door skin after it was cut away for the door skin to cover. These have been bolted or bonded inside the MR2 - bolts on the inner door panel and bonded to the inside of the outer skin.
The bottom of the MR2 door is the recovered in a piece of plastic bonded/glassed in place and made from eaves protectors.
Before bonding the MRS200 door skin on I started to fit the Sierra door mirror, cutting the mounting pillars down first. I planned to bolt the bottom two pillars through the MR2 door skin and thought this would be enough given the top edge of the plinth rested against the door skin. Bad move as there was no way I would get a bolt or nut the other side of the skin. So plan B came into play and I am glassing in an ally corner piece to which the mirror will be bolted.
Here’s the template and just waiting for some more ally sheet to arrive in the next few days.
Many thanks to Nathanial the now owner of Andy’s original prototype car for sending me photos of how the Sierra mirrors were fitted to that one.
So while waiting for the ally sheet to arrive I painted the bonnet wing support pieces that I had already made and fitted from Perspex and also got round to buying an adjustable bonnet support as I decided I wouldn’t fit anything permanent under the bonnet.
I have decided to use rivnuts to bolt the Perspex side windows through and drilled these out today. Thanks Nostromo for the pictures of how you fitted yours. I will wait until the ally sheet is in before cutting the Perspex down for the corner piece where the mirror fits and then at least for the drivers door the bonding of the skin will be the final piece.
I say at least for the drivers door .... well the passenger side is another matter and I’m beginning to think the whole passenger side of the car is the ugly sister of the drivers side!
I spent most of this afternoon fettling the passenger door skin to try to get a better fit. The upper edge where it meets the roof line is fine at the rear of the door and a nice gap to the windscreen pillar but along the top edge for about 30cm where it meets the windscreen to halfway along the window top there is a huge gap.
I need to get some heat on the metal framework that surrounds the top edge of the door skin to see if I can reshape it otherwise I can see I will be taking the cutting disk to it and trying to reshape it with glass fibre.
More on that one soon.....