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Old 8th February 2021, 15:49
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Thought I'd share a few pictures of progress on the rear hinged doors:

The hinges need to be recessed into the body about 25mm, so I'm moulding a set of four 'soap dishes' in fibreglass to French into the body. Starting point was to hunt around the boxes of 'useful' crap in my shed for something suitable to use as a plug, but then tripped over a cork sanding block that fitted the bill dimensions wise.

After carefully wrapping it in parcel tape and then taping it to an old place mat, it was slip, slap slop with the resin and CSM (you can see an identical sanding block in shot that's too damaged to use but gives you an idea of what lies beneath) -



I also moulded a set of four 'finger slots' to take the hinges inside the doors. I was able to make all four at once by making two symmetrical plugs out of wood covered in the obligatory parcel tape, glassing over them then cutting the resulting mouldings in half. Probably easier to understand if I show you this picture -



And to give a clearer idea of how it's all going to work, the 'soap dishes' will be recessed into the body and the 'finger slots' will be bonded onto the inside of the door skins in the position shown here -



The key to fitting hinges on curved surfaces is to make absolutely sure that they're in a straight line with each other. To that end, you'll see that I have bolted the hinges through a piece of flat steel bar which will keep the hinges in line with each other. That will sit inside the body and will be welded and braced to the subframe beneath to make sure all the stresses are taken by the frame, not the body. That should ensure I don't end up with droopy doors and cracks in the body.

Here's the mock up I made to test whether the solenoids I'd bought to automatically lock the doors when the handbrake is released were up to the job, which they are -



After Mick mentioned the awful Phillips screws looking out of place on my car, as luck would have it, the pack of Allen bolts and lock nuts I'd already ordered to bolt up the hinges with arrived yesterday (Jeff Bezos will be delighted to hear that he's now £5.99 richer than he was on Saturday). I'd ordered quite a few spares and, more by luck than judgement, it turns out that they also fit the Mini boot hinges perfectly -



That's better

My second 'soap dish' will be out of the mould tomorrow so I should be able to start the process of recessing them into the body and seeing if the hinges will actually clear the body when they swing open.

Last edited by Mister Towed; 8th February 2021 at 15:55..
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