#121
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Passenger door – door card mockup
As the next step in door fabrication, I decided to mock up the door card and build stuff the will be behind it. Using cardboard, two different styles were mocked up. One with a door pocket and the other without.
I liked the clean look of the one without the door pocket but decided the other was more practical. It will give a place to store stuff and with this placement alleviates the need for a visible door pull. The door frame tubes will pass through near the top of the pocket and will work nicely as a grip to pull the door shut. I then went about mocking up the pocket box again using cardboard. While using the door frame as a pull simplifies in one way, it makes for a very complicated interior box requiring separate pieces to go around the frame tubes.
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Joel Heinke Be original; don't be afraid of being bold! |
#122
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Passenger door – door card construction
I was waffling a bit on which of the door card designs was best. I decided to use the design for the door card with an interior pocket due to passenger comfort. I installed the seat to check for elbow room spacing and there isn’t much.
So, I transcribed the template onto AL 3003 - .050 and cut the door card piece out. There’s a decent amount of curve on the inner door frame where the door card mounts due to the tilt in the window frame. Using a combination of go-kart slick and regular anvils in the English wheel, I shaped the door card for the curve. The door pocket was then completed in Al .040 from the cardboard templates. Next up is adding the details onto the door card.
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Joel Heinke Be original; don't be afraid of being bold! |
#123
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Should look good Joel.
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Marcus aka. Gojeep Victoria, Australia http://willyshotrod.com Invention is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less materials you need. |
#124
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Passenger door – door locks
Not really metal shaping, but still part of the GTO build project. It occurred to me that I’d forgotten to make provision for a door lock in my door card design. Not that surprising as the original GTO didn’t have door locks given it’s racing heritage. But in this day and age, it seems only prudent to have door locks on a street driven coupe. The bear claw latches I used have an “L” shaped metal bar that slides up about ¾” to lock and down to unlock. On most cars with manual door locks, the door lock actuator is located somewhere on the door card.
I thought about various ways to do this but none felt right. Then I thought about “hiding” the door lock actuator in the door pocket. I first started mocking this up using a bicycle brake cable and was going to fabricate a lever to push/pull the cable. This showed promise but I wasn’t convinced the cable would be stiff enough for the push operation. It turns out that later that day I needed to mow the grass around my house. While operating the mower, it occurred to me that it’s throttle did both a push and pull operation. So I went to my local saw and mower shop to see what I could find. For $7.50 each, I was able to buy mower throttles that included the lever and plenty of cable made with solid wire so it should be stiff enough to push for the un-lock. I made up a bracket so that the lever tip would be accessible from inside the door pocket and thus out of sight. The flexible cable runs back to the door latch to pull and push on the door lock bar. Sometimes a great solution is simple and not the most intuitive On the door card, I used a bead roller to emboss the diagonal pattern on the surface. I plan to leave this as polished aluminum and didn’t want it to just be plain. I hemmed the edge around the door pocket opening so it wouldn’t have a sharp edge. Turns out hemming an inside edge requires quite a bit of stretch to turn it over, so not an easy task. It’s good that I did a practice run on a piece of scrap to figure out a good technique that would minimize hammer marks. The door card will be fastened with stainless button head screws and I decided to space them every 3 inches. This is way more screws than necessary but adds more eye candy to the door. I checked my stock of rivet-nuts and don’t have near as many as needed. Oh well, time to order more.
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Joel Heinke Be original; don't be afraid of being bold! |
#125
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That's looking really good.
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#126
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Good solution to the door lock.
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Marcus aka. Gojeep Victoria, Australia http://willyshotrod.com Invention is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less materials you need. |
#127
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The door looks great. It was my first time on my car also and learned allot. A friend of mine built a glass Ferrari roadster from scratch and it's beautiful but with no opening doors. He said they jumped over the doors any way in the day.......cop out! It looks silly like a plastic bath toy . Ray
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Ray |
#128
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Drivers door – door card
Making the drivers door card was pretty much a repeat of the passenger side. I thought some step by step pics on hemming the door pocket opening edge might be of interest. The first step was cutting out an opening that is about ¼” smaller than the final opening. I did this with an electric jigsaw.
Next was turning a 90 degree flange around the opening. Doing this on an inside opening is much harder than outside edge because you can’t use a bead roller. To prepare for making the flange, I clamped a dolly with a long square edge into my bench vice and used a plastic forming hammer. I chose the forming hammer for it’s round faces that could make the flange in the curved parts of the opening. I chose the plastic hammer as it would be less likely to leave hammer marks as a metal faced hammer could. I slowly hammered around the opening forming the flange using the sharpie marks as a guide. There’s quite a bit of stretch required on the curved sections. I used the hammer small end for the curved areas and large end for the straights. The Al 3003 was soft enough that annealing wasn’t required. Next I flipped the door card over and worked from the backside. While sitting, and balancing the dolly with the largest flat portion up on my knee, I carefully hammered the flange over using the large end of the forming hammer. It’s important to keep the dolly flat on the outer surface to avoid marking the panel. I set the hem close to flat with the forming hammer. The final set was done face up on a power hammer using a rubber faced upper die and an almost flat lower die. I used a low power setting to avoid warping or marking the door card surface. The hem is now completely flat after the power hammer work. The door pocket opening now has a smooth edge free of any burrs or potential snags.
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Joel Heinke Be original; don't be afraid of being bold! |
#129
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Drivers door – door card
Well done Joel.
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John S. E _________________________________________________ Torque is nothing, unless you can get it to the road. |
#130
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__________________
Joel Heinke Be original; don't be afraid of being bold! |
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