10 replies to this topic

[mike.]

Ok i've got Streetfighter doors on my car. For those that don't know, they're steel doors with the inner door cut out and fitted with an aluminium skin fitted to save weight.

I've fitted them with new hinges and just got round to attaching all the lock mechanism and rods which is all working fine.

I then adjusted the door so it shuts nicely against the body, and generally i'm happy with the fit of them now. Much better than my old standard doors anyway:



The problem is that the front of the door touches and compresses the seal way before the back of the door is anywhere near closed. This means that to shut the door you need to put alot of force on the handle and help the door to close with your knee aswell. Obviously this is not ideal and from the inside, the handle would rip off way before the door was latched properly. Another thing that doesn't help to much is that these doors weight about 5kg as opposed to 20kg, so theres no weight behind them to help them swing and slam shut, so i'm going to need to get them closing nicely.

Its hard really to show on photos but here goes. Here you can see the window frame at the rear corner is just about sealing against the seal:



All the way round the back edge of the door and along the bottom of the door its all the same as above, seals properly against the seal (seal is off on this photo):



Now its hard to tell from the photo but higher up on the inner front edge of the door (just below where your door release handle would go) the door comes very close to the lip for the seal. Here the seal is removed and you can see the gap is only a few millimetres, so with the door shut and latched like above the seal is well and truly crushed!



So me and my dad are pretty much stumped with how to sort this.


The only idea we've come up with is to remove the door and file the hinge holes in the flinch panel slightly wider towards the A panel, to allow the front of the door to be positioned a few mill' further away from the seal. However I think this will cause clearance problems with the A panel when the door is opened. So then my dad suggested to try shimming the door backwards to compensate for that, which needs doing anyway as the upper hinge region gets extremely close to the body:



But the back of the door barely has any room to be shimmed backwards anyway because where the door skin is folded round the frame theres only a few mill' to work with:



So really whatever we try were stuck...

Any thoughts on our idea to file the hinge stud holes wider to move the front of the door out? Because i've noticed looking at the door that its only lower down on the A panel where the door moves inwards as its opened, so maybe just filing the top hinge holes out, we'd get away with the clearance...


Thanks

[asmith88]

well at least you can get yours to shut, i cant get mine to close enough to push the seals.. nice water leak..

[mike.]

Yeah I know people do have worse problems than this but not being able to shut the door from the inside will be a nightmare and the alu skins are so thin/weak that if somebody trys to help the door close with their knee its not going to be long before they put the door skin inside out under the force!

[jayare]

I had to tweak the seam that the seal fits on on mine last time (although I had to move the seal closer to the door on the upper part of the front. You should be able to bend the seam in towards the centre of the car a bit without too much trouble. Be careful if you elongate the holes that the door doesn't catch on the A-panel,

JR

[mike.]

Yeah I thought about doing that also, just looked like pretty thick steel and that even with it bent, the base of the lip would still be really close.

It'd be the easiest fix really, I might try it tomorrow.

I'll just use some mole grips or something to bend the seal lip further in and see how it goes...

[1984mini25]

Yeah I thought about doing that also, just looked like pretty thick steel and that even with it bent, the base of the lip would still be really close.

It'd be the easiest fix really, I might try it tomorrow.

I'll just use some mole grips or something to bend the seal lip further in and see how it goes...

Thats what i've done on mine on the mayfair, seams to be fine, I had no other option though using mk1 hinges on a mk3 door

[Deathrow]

Righto, here's my two pence!

How are the aluminium skins held to the door frame other than the pop rivets we can see in the images?

I ask because I've just hung two new door skins and they're welded where yours are pop rivetted and the lips are folded over on all edges. However, they are not yet tacked around the edges, because of this it allows the door to physically twist, this could be part of your issue?

Other than that, you say there is no way to budge your door backwards but looking at the last photo in your post, it appears to me that the door is sitting too high as the swage line in the door skin doesn't line up with that of the rear quater.

Have you tried opening the door, holding the bottom of it and pushing on the top of the frame? Mini doors were never a perfect fit, they got beaten, twisted and all sorts to get them to fit each individual shell. Just don't go mental!

[1984mini25]

Those street fighter doors will be pop riveted and bonded all the way round and folded over I suspect.

[mike.]

Yeah the skins are folded over and bonded all the way round, then a couple of rivets at the top to clamp them tight on the frame.

The doors are quite flimsy and the alu skins are really easily dented, so I can't really bend/twist them because they'll just end up getting damaged.

I know what you mean about the swage line it needs a shim adding to the top hinge ideally, but the gap is equal along the whole back edge of the door so don't want to spoil that. Also with the fold of the skin being quite thick, I think it'd catch if I shimmed it backwards.

I think i'll try and reshape the lip that the seal sits on, then if that works ok I can concentrate of adjusting the door without it catching and getting it lined up properly.

Thanks for the help.

[Deathrow]

Mike, if you're going to adjust the lip. Maybe do it with the rubber in place and then knock it with a hammer, that way you're not going to damage your paint work with mole grips.

Just a thought. Hope you get it sorted .

[mike.]

Yeah I was going to cover the tips of the grips with cardboard or something but that might be a better way of doing it. Its quite thick metal there though so going to take a fair bit of force, so it may damage the seal doing it that way.

I'll give it a go anyway, thanks for the tip.