Iāve been preparing for major fender repairs so, to help alignment and shaping when making the new sections, I needed to align the left hand driverās door. First up was to remove the door card which required a door handle removal tool. The manual shows how to make one so into it.
I was having trouble dislodging the spring retainer at first until I realised the tool had to fit between the handle and bearing plate which my old eyes didnāt see at first.
The tool needs to be in line with the handle
When you push the tool, it moves the retainer from here ....
.... to here
The āearsā you can see in the first shot are what holds the handle on by lodging in a groove in the pivot pin
To remove the door card, I used s large screwdriver to prise out the clips from the door
On Special models, thereās also a screw to remove at the rear of the armrest.
And, of course, thereās always one bastard that spoils the party - this one was bent inside the door and, as luck would have it, the door and window mechanisms wouldnāt let me get my hand inside to help out.
I damaged it while applying some butchery and there were another couple missing, so Iāll need to get some replacements.
To reposition the door, the three top hinge bolts
and three bottom hinge bolts need to be loosened
I used a pencil to mark the current position and figured I had to move the door back about 2mm and up about 1mm. I didnāt get any before shots but the front and back gaps were now even and the door wasnāt scrubbing the visor when opening it
By lifting the door, the top of the door where it meets the fender also flows evenly
Next was to make a new gasket that fits between the rear of the fender and the car body. after grinding off a rust frozen bolt that still had a bit of fender stuck to it
The original was broken in about 4 places and hard and dry
I bought some 2mm sheet rubber from Clarkeās and split it lengthwise to get a piece for each side, then made a 1/2ā punch by drilling into 1/2ā tube to get a sharp edge.
To mark the hole positions, I put the rubber in place and marked the spot by pushing a 1/2ā bolt into the hole
I started at the top and worked my way down, putting a bolt in each hole as I went to maintain position.
When the holes were done, I cut the sheet to shape with scissors
Cheers,
John
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