Saturday, October 1, 2011

Door deconstruction

Learned a lot about E9 doors today. Some things seem really well thought out, others seem haphazard. Obviously a side effect of being hand made. I also learned that one of this car's POs was a careless mechanic, because the guy I bought it from told me he swapped out the doors from some he bought on the mainland, and I found lots of missing hardware. Why use two bolts when one will do?

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I decided to start with the vent window gearbox, but that was a mistake. Need to remove the entire window frame first, as it slides down into the gearbox drive shaft.

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Removing the window only required two bolts, both in the rear. Appears a third bolt in the rear lift bracket was missing. The glass is passable, but not all that good. Has a long scratch along one edge (as if a rock got jammed in the window opening), and there is a chip near the upper edge. I am not going to replace it until everything else is nice. Which may be never.

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The forward window rail carries all of the weight. Along with one or two normal looking bolts that go into tapped holes, there are two unusual mounts made up from slotted studs and nuts. Remove the nuts and washers, then "tighten" the studs if necessary until they slide up through the slots.

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I took a series of five pictures of to detail the rust damage along the top edge. The inner panel will need some repairs before new skins can be attached. I plan to do that before removing the old skin.

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The vent window connects to the gearbox via a flat tang and slotted shaft. Looks like a bolt belongs here, but nothing present.

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Two quick shots of bottom edge rust damage. May need to repair inner panel but does not appear as severe as the top edge.

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Removed the outer door handle and the lock.

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The rear lift rail was only attached by two thin nuts at top of door. Note thin adjustment plate between nuts and door. Bottom end appears to be missing a bolt.

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Removed all of the trim retaining nuts, but unable to remove trim strip because one stud was rusted to its washers. Shot with PB Blaster.

All in all a very satisfying day. Do need to get back to the nose, it needs a little more work and a coat of paint to stave off more rust.
posted from Bloggeroid

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