Sorry everyone, looks like GT40s.com doesn't want me to have vertically oriented photos tonight... I fiddled with it for about 5 minutes and couldn't fix things so not sure why I am just now having this trouble.
The drivers door leading edge was very far from matching up with the A-pillar near the windshield. Luckily this also easily could be bent in with some gentle clamping force and plenty of heat.
Once the doors were fitting how I liked and panel gaps at about 85% I moved onto the door latches as I wanted to have these installed and working before I finalize any body gaps. I opted to mount the plate on the outside of the door. This way the plate sandwiches the fiberglass between itself and the actual bear claw latch. I think this setup is stronger/more solid. Plus the plate will look great powder coated black. Please excuse the rough initial cuts in the fiberglass here, I will certainly circle back to clean everything up once I nail down the functionality.
I plan to circle back at a later time and install some metal beams across the door for some anti-intrusion. Still thinking through how to bring it all together.
Currently I am REALLY struggling with mounting the actual exterior door latch. I hate the idea of simply pinning it through holes in the fiberglass, and lets be honest there needs to be some adjustment in the pinning location to get it perfectly lined up and flush with the door. I also ran out of fiberglass for the latch pin. Currently thinking about fiber-glassing in some aluminum angle stock and building some adjustment into that.
Also the latch lever is inconveniently located at the bottom of the latch far from the lever. Currently I mocked up some scrap aluminum to bolt in there to test things but eventually I think I will weld some steel onto this latch so the arm extends vertically upward closer to the handle arm. This will be much more advantageous for the lever system and also I don't need to worry about a bolt loosening up and preventing my door from opening.
To mount the door jamb bolts I trimmed down the supplied part so it wasn't as long, and simply welded in some new steel to provide the necessary offset. This was a bit tricky to get to line up well on the first try. I also ran into a bit of an issue where the bolts holding the latch plate to the door stuck out far enough to catch the door jamb mount slightly. Currently I just have some extra washers to stick the bolt out further which then allowed me to have a little less offset for the mount. Pretty happy with how this turned out, definitely going to circle back and reinforce the mount.
Hopefully soon I will have better mounting for the exterior latches and can do the same thing for the drivers door. From there it is just lots of sanding. Not super happy with how the passenger door lines up with the spider from the supplier... as you can see from the above picture a lot of work will be needed to even things out. The last two major milestones for the body will be switching the front nose to a hinge style mount so it can be tilted forward and adding the +2 flares... should be a fun time!!!
happy new year all!!
The drivers door leading edge was very far from matching up with the A-pillar near the windshield. Luckily this also easily could be bent in with some gentle clamping force and plenty of heat.
Once the doors were fitting how I liked and panel gaps at about 85% I moved onto the door latches as I wanted to have these installed and working before I finalize any body gaps. I opted to mount the plate on the outside of the door. This way the plate sandwiches the fiberglass between itself and the actual bear claw latch. I think this setup is stronger/more solid. Plus the plate will look great powder coated black. Please excuse the rough initial cuts in the fiberglass here, I will certainly circle back to clean everything up once I nail down the functionality.
I plan to circle back at a later time and install some metal beams across the door for some anti-intrusion. Still thinking through how to bring it all together.
Currently I am REALLY struggling with mounting the actual exterior door latch. I hate the idea of simply pinning it through holes in the fiberglass, and lets be honest there needs to be some adjustment in the pinning location to get it perfectly lined up and flush with the door. I also ran out of fiberglass for the latch pin. Currently thinking about fiber-glassing in some aluminum angle stock and building some adjustment into that.
Also the latch lever is inconveniently located at the bottom of the latch far from the lever. Currently I mocked up some scrap aluminum to bolt in there to test things but eventually I think I will weld some steel onto this latch so the arm extends vertically upward closer to the handle arm. This will be much more advantageous for the lever system and also I don't need to worry about a bolt loosening up and preventing my door from opening.
To mount the door jamb bolts I trimmed down the supplied part so it wasn't as long, and simply welded in some new steel to provide the necessary offset. This was a bit tricky to get to line up well on the first try. I also ran into a bit of an issue where the bolts holding the latch plate to the door stuck out far enough to catch the door jamb mount slightly. Currently I just have some extra washers to stick the bolt out further which then allowed me to have a little less offset for the mount. Pretty happy with how this turned out, definitely going to circle back and reinforce the mount.
Hopefully soon I will have better mounting for the exterior latches and can do the same thing for the drivers door. From there it is just lots of sanding. Not super happy with how the passenger door lines up with the spider from the supplier... as you can see from the above picture a lot of work will be needed to even things out. The last two major milestones for the body will be switching the front nose to a hinge style mount so it can be tilted forward and adding the +2 flares... should be a fun time!!!
happy new year all!!
