Owner built on a budget;

[Hray]

Sat update: Tcrist came up to help me with hinges today, He is the one that started the discussion in the first place so I gotta blame this on him. Being short I did not want the hinges necessarily for more entry and exit comfort. I wanted it because I felt it might be safer for the paint and body after completion and with the intent of getting the body lines as close a possible. I have heard this fiberglass will expand in the heat, and what was once plenty of clearance for opening in the cool garage setting that all of a sudden when expanded in heat you may make contact with the door on the body with the original hinges. I cannot confirm nor deny that assumptions, but it sounded good to me.

You know the ole saying 'run what you brung', well in this case it is 'build it what you got.'

I started with a 3 inch channel iron because that is what was in the scrape bin. I cut them in 4 inch lengths. Then cut off one side to end up with a 1 by 3 angle iron. I am not sure they make a 1 by 3 but if they did I bet it would be pricey because if such a uncommon size.

Next out in the scrap pile was a 3.5 inch iron pipe that used to be a gate post. I had to sledge hammer off the concrete to carry the pipe up to the shop. I cut the pipe into 4 inch lengths. Then cut the pipe in half to make two half rounds. I thought this would be close to DV's U's that he mentioned to Terry in that hinge posting.

Next under my welding table are these scrap 4 by quarter inch straps. These come from the local blue collar supply. I try to keep a supply of them on hand for makeing motor mounts or use for gussets or what ever.

I cut off the sleeve for the hinge pin and bushings from the original CRL hinges.

I then made top and bottom pieces again 4 inches in length for the most part. I am going to let Terry give you the specific deminsions for all this.

I had my prototype made a couple days ago. I wanted Terry to confirm it was doable. We tried a couple different approaches to center points, etc,, and basically went back to what I developed first off.

Here is picture of hinge on the car.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2484/...749e75c6_b.jpg

Here is a picture of passengers hinge looking from rear to front
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2571/...dd1b623f_b.jpg

Here is a picture of hinge looking from front to rear
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3493/...78e689a9_b.jpg

Notice the internal brace. This could have been place at the very front of the hinge, but that would have made a very deep hinge pocket. Nothing wrong with that but I felt the angle brace would make the hinge seem smaller when looking at it with the door open. This is a massive enough hinge without making it look larger that needed.

The drivers door went on without any problem, using the exact same holes in the cowl bar plate. The passenger door for some reason dropped in the rear. Not a problem because I was planning on drilling out the original holes to about 9/16 anyway. I did drill it to that size, then was able to have enough adjustment to bring up the rear. I will use spacer between the hinge and cowl plate to shim the door out as needed. Once finaled I will install a quarter inch plate on the inside with normal size holes and basically sandwich the cowl plate between these two quarter inch plates. That should be solid enough. Depending on how I feel at the time, with the very last torquing of the hinge in place I might drill two quarter inch holes and hammer in two roll pins.

We made three sets of these hinges in about 5 hours once we decided exactly what to do. Even with getting mixed up and making too many rights and not enough lefts. We did end up with rights and lefts. Not sure if CRL's are interchangeable or not.

That is my story and I am sticking to it.
Ray