Doors

From all the posts and chat on the forums it appears that getting the doors lined up and fitting is a complete nightmare. After painting the hinges and cutting holes in body, I trial fitted them and it appeared there was a lot of movement, up/down, left/right. So I set them in the middle to allow movement either way. As per the instructions I offset them from the chassis with an m10 nut.

I held the doors up against the hinges and used bits of folded cardboard to pad the door away from the body. After marking some holes in the door it was obvious that I was going to need a different number of washers between the hinge and the door. I tighten it all up and was pleasantly surprised that the door didn't look too bad. It open and closed :-) It did rub slightly on the edge near the hinge, but a little filing sorted that. By adding/removing washers to one of the 4 holes bolting the door to the hinge I was able to get pretty good alignment. Add to that moving the body in a little and bolting to the chassis the doors fit fairly well. The secret is to secure the hinge to the chassis and not be tempted to adjust that, and only adjust the hinge to door bolts - well it worked for me. I probably only spent 1/2 a day aligning each door.

Next came to the door latches. I didn't keep the original Sierra door latches so I bought some from Car Builder solutions and some flush door handles.

I had to make up some brackets as the ones supplied by Pilgrim were intended for the bigger Sierra handles (which I think look rubbish. These chrome handles look much better. Once the bracket was installed I made up some door cards from 3mm marine ply. I connected the door handles to the latched using a piece of bend wire from an old wire coat hanger!

Since the door cards go on last and clip on the handles needed to be secured to the door before the card goes on and then lastly the plastic surround.

Next is to cover the cards in vinyl (or leather) and decide whether I need/want a pocket in the door.