11 replies to this topic

[KaneH]

Hi everyone

 

OK, I am in the middle of planning the rebuild of my '80 clubman I have tucked away in the garage and am looking at doing something a little different. I've been looking at the possibility of fitting smoothed fibreglass doors (no handles) with polycarbonate mk1 sliding windows but am trying to figure out a way of getting around the locking issues.

 

Now the question I have is, has anyone got experience in using/fitting electronic poppers with remote central locking to a mini, or any other car for that matter? And what would the expected weight gain be (per door) of fitting this setup? I'm expecting the weight of all the kit and the fibreglass door to be less than the standard weight with glass windows but by how much.

 

After a quick search I've found that issues can occur if the battery were to go flat, i.e. you can't access the vehicle, but I am planning on fitting additional external jumping points (if I'm to remove the boot lock as well) or keep the access to the boot via standard key method.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Kane 

[Andy!]

Following this as i am also looking into remote central locking, But without smoothed doors. I shouldnt expect the setup to add any real noticeable weight to the car though in all honesty.

[Badboytunes]

I was aware/ under the assumption that they would not pass the mot............

[KaneH]

From a quick look online it seems the remote central locking units weigh roughly 3.5kg so not much when you split it between two doors.

What is it exactly about the kits that makes them fail an mot? I've seen a few of them having emergency measures included which allow you to open the doors manually, by means of hidden switch for example. Would this then make them legal as all you're essentially doing is moving the opening point to somewhere else on the car?

[Badboytunes]

_{I was told ( all be it quite some time ago ) by the garage that I used to go to ( for mot ) that cars that have no means of manually entering the vehicle from the outside would fail an mot. to be honest, it would be worth checking.}

 

_{Just wanted to give a heads up.}

[KaneH]

Ok Thanks for the advice, think that is fairly understandable coming to think of it. I'll need to see if I can integrate a manual release somewhere as a fail safe

[Jordie]

Doors must be able to open from inside and outside

[Carlos W]

Was it the TVR that had a button on the wing mirror?

[KaneH]

Yes it was the TVR that had a button on the underside of the wing mirror, think I seen one on wheeler dealers a few weeks ago with it.

Being a switch rather than a lever you would expect it to operate an electrical circuit of some form to release the door. Do you think then that you would not require an actual mechanical release?

[Tamworthbay]

I have just fitted a cheapy aftermarket central locking kit to my daily and it was straightforward and weighs next to nothing, that wouldn't open the doors though but only cost £25 all in off eBay.

[blueturbomini]

I smoothed the doors on my mini and fitted poppers. When i took the car for its MOT i was told before the guy started that it would fail due to no handles on the doors.

 

When i questioned him further he told me it was due to the fact that as i had removed the door handles it was now changed from the original design when first built. This is why certain cars like TVR and the old frog eye sprite can be MOTed and pass

[KaneH]

Surely that can't be right? What about modified cars in general? By his reasoning any modification to a cars body would result in a failed mot, for example if you were to change a bonnet release or boot release from external to internal would that be classed as changing the original design and hence fail an mot? Or what about something like suicide doors?

 

Did you end up removing your modification and replace it with original? Have you got any pictures of your setup when it was on the car?

 

By the time I'm finished with the build I will likely have to put it through a BIVA test because of the modifications that will be happening to the chassis etc, would this sort of mod be accounted for in their test? 

 

From a little further reading, albeit on online forums, the general consensus is that as long as you have a way of manually opening the doors from inside and outside then it is ok. I'll have to look into it a little further with regards to legality.