As you know Chop Top #13 is going to be located in Arizona & I've agreed to retro-fit a set of Suicide doors & a 6 speed to it before we send it out there.
Another thread was asking about suicide doors & since we were about to do the doors on this car, I said I'd do a write-up on the surgery.
When I said I was going to do a thread on Suicide doors, I don’t think I realized just how hard it was going to be to explain it completely.
When we do Chop Tops, we pretty well have the methods standardized to where all of them are essentially the same. We’ve made a few improvements over the years on the Chops to eliminate the slight “dip” in the roof & to make molds for the interior “A” & “B” pillars & the triangular parts on the inside trim of the fastback quarter window trim. But the cuts, welds, windows & metal work have been virtually identical thru all of the Chops.
On the suicide doors there is a LOT of fabricating that has to be done & a lot of individual parts that have to be made. There is also some variation from car to car depending on what ¼ panels are on the car & how wide the door has to swing to clear them.
When we did the 1st suicide door car, “The Stinger”, we did the right hand side door 1st because I felt the right side door would be used less than the drivers side door & what we learned on the right side may make the left side door better. And we still do it that way. On this car, we tried to document what we did on the right side of the car with pictures & I figured that what we learned about documenting that door conversion would make the documentation on the drivers side door even better.
At this point we pretty well have both doors swinging already & I’m going to open up this thread with some pictures we took on the passenger side door. Then I’ll try to describe the process in greater detail on the drivers side.
So, to start out with here are some pics taken during the building of the right side door.
As you can see most of the body work needs to be removed.
(The orange color in this pic was caused by the yellow shop worklight that was shining on the car at the time.)
We keep the stock Fiero hinges operational so that we know the front of the door is where it's supposed to be while we work on building up the rear hinges.
Then we got to build up the entire back end of the Fiero door frame with steel plate so that the stock door frame doesn't flex when we get the hinges welded up to it. This finished assembly could have the strongest hinges in the world but the door will sag if you have the hinges attached to anything that will flex. Even if it flexes just slightly, you're going to have problems later.
That plate you see here wraps around to the undersode of the door frame too......
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04:22 PM
PFF
System Bot
Archie Member
Posts: 9436 From: Las Vegas, NV Registered: Dec 1999
The steel plate & the 3" angles are tack welded in as we establish the mounting for the rear part of the hinge assembly.
The pictures showing the building of the hinges for the back of the door didn't come out too well, So We'll show that in more detail on the drivers side. Here we have the door swinging on the rear hinge
Here is a picture of the roughed hinge from the inside.
The nice thing about leaving the original hinges on the door is that you can check the new hinge to make sure it's swinging straight & true by closing the door & checking the hinge bolt holes. When your ready to weld up all that steel at the rear, you can put the front hinge bolts in place to geep everything in place while you weld it up.
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04:50 PM
madcurl Member
Posts: 21401 From: In a Van down by the Kern River Registered: Jul 2003
Another thing of note, if you don't have a Plasma cutter & a welding outfit & know how to use them, you really shouldn't be taking this job on.
Here's some pics of the rear hinge assembly after it's been welded up & after we trim the shape of the upper & lower hinge plates.
Once we have that all established, it's time to put the steel skin back on.
It took Rob, who knows what he's doing & who has done this several times before, about 3 working days to to do what you've seen in the last 3 posts. So don't plan on this being easy.
Archie
[This message has been edited by Archie (edited 03-12-2007).]
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05:09 PM
RCR Member
Posts: 4416 From: Shelby Twp Mi Registered: Sep 2002
I don't know if I've asked you already but, will the clearance work using the suicide doors and a IRM wide-body rockers? Enquiring minds would like to know? It would be nice if you pop'd on a wide body prior to heading to D7.
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11:16 AM
Archie Member
Posts: 9436 From: Las Vegas, NV Registered: Dec 1999
Now we're going to try to do the Drivers side & give some more detail.
I told you before that we leave the door hanging from the original hinges while we do the initial work. Here we've put on a "C" Clamp with the door latched. That way it serves as a "bump stop" so the finished door will be aligned with the front & rear fenders & not be in too far at one end when we're done.
Then it's time to get out the Saws-All to gain access to the area where we'll build the hinge.
Her's the bottom cut..... (Note the "C" clamp bump stop)
We drill out the rivits
Here is it opened up.....
and the panel, Save the panel because we'll be putting it back on later......
Archie
[This message has been edited by Archie (edited 03-12-2007).]
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11:45 AM
Archie Member
Posts: 9436 From: Las Vegas, NV Registered: Dec 1999
I don't know if I've asked you already but, will the clearance work using the suicide doors and a IRM wide-body rockers? Enquiring minds would like to know? It would be nice if you pop'd on a wide body prior to heading to D7.
You may recall that when we did the Suicide doors on Frank Martin's car, he had a set of the IRM rockers on the car & we had a problem clearing the oversized half round trim pc. that was molded into the IRM's. We went ahead & put on my rockers which use the stock half round trim & that took care of that problem. The new rockers we are doing for the wide body, can still use the stock trim so it should clear that.
The real problem will be clearing the area of the rear clip that is above the trim line. The hinges will have to be designed to kick the door out around that body feature.
Archie
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02:47 PM
Archie Member
Posts: 9436 From: Las Vegas, NV Registered: Dec 1999
Now Rob starts to build the hinge plates inside the "A" pillar.
He uses 2 pcs. of 1/4" wall 3" Angle iron. Both pcs need to be 6" apart. They need to be level & parallel to each other.
As you do that, you need to remember that the most important thing you need to do is to locate the top angle iron in exactly the right place. You'll remember that we still have the door hanging on the car. As you close the door the bottom of the upper angle needs to be located as shown in the picture below.
Initially we just tac welk these angles in place.
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03:48 PM
Archie Member
Posts: 9436 From: Las Vegas, NV Registered: Dec 1999
Now we fabricate the upper & lower plates & locate them.
They are 3/8" plate & are located as shown below. They're just square cut pcs. right now. they'll be Plasma Cut to the correct shape later. They need to come out a little past where the body panels would be & extend about 5" behind the edge of the door. the Plates & the angles are bolted together right now, until we get everything in place. Then they will be welded in place.
Archie
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04:02 PM
Fierotaz Member
Posts: 1289 From: Glendale, AZ Registered: Mar 2004
Yes, I will be getting more involved in the local get togethers. I was going to go on the Tortilla Flats Breakfast cruise on Sunday, but ended up spending the night in the ER with my wife. We didn't get done until 11:30 on Sunday. Leroy
Edited for spelling
[This message has been edited by Fierotaz (edited 03-13-2007).]
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12:52 AM
PFF
System Bot
Apr 12th, 2007
GODFATHER Member
Posts: 1020 From: Summerville S.C Registered: Jun 2003
Well I don't have any update on the actual build, but I wanted to share pics of final product. This gallery has pics of the suicide doors and the 1.5" drop...
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gonna be at Daytona?
. Will you be going to any of the local get-togethers after you take delivery?
