Doors

[WallerZ]

Has anyone made their own doors at all? Just wondering on what you did as I'm looking to have a stab at making my own. Currently thinking a sheet of polycarbonate, covered with leather to the point a window and edges. Cheap(ish) and fairly straight forward I think?

 

Any opinions and thoughts very much welcomed

[agent_zed]

Hi,

made my own doors. Pretty much in the traditional way made a metal frame from 15mm x 3mm flat steel. I made it to fit the car so as i made the frame i bent and twisted the metal to fit flush and inline with the sides. something you can't do with the bought ones as you'd damage the material.

 

Once i had the frame built i had to sew on the hooding material and clear plastic (from a tent repair company).

 

So the way i did it was

 

1. make the frame to fit the car

2. fix hinges so the door frame is correct and holes drilled ( i made my own custom alu hinges but what ever you want)

3. paint the frame as once the material is on you obv can't paint again

4. before sewing the material on i first cut the window hole and glued the plastic over the hole with a 1inch lip and stiched around.

5. now the clever bit. Because the sewing machine isn't long enough to sew to the centre bar i instead sewed a flap along where the centre bar is.

I then put glue on the centre bar and wrapped the flap around. The material is now fixed along the centre bar and all the edges are loose.

6. pull the edges around the bars. i put some glue on the bars to hold the material whilst i sewed the material around the bars.

7. all being well you now have doors that should fit your car pretty well.

 

I used them going to exmouth last year in oct and went through a rain storm at 70 and didn't have any water push through.

 

If i did them again i would prob make them longer at the top as i followed tradition and did an angled back.

more like the donkervoort ones http://www.pistonheads.com/pics/news/12499/Donkervoort_D8-4-L.jpg

 

I'll see if i have a pic of mine

 

You could of course do the frame like i did then attach polycarb to the top and skin the bottom in ally etc

 

hth

[WallerZ]

I'm guessing you welded the frame together?

 

I prefer the leather finish, adds a bit of a softer touch rather than sharp edges etc, the polycarb would be a clear sheet say 3-4mm thick as a decent window, but I'll get to that once a frame is sorted

[nicko]

I made my own doors. Thin ali sheet for bottom half, clear plastic sheet for top. Covered ali in vinyl and sewed a slot in the top for a strip of ali, then nuts and bolts to plastic. The doors fold in half for storage. Cost about 70 quid.

hth

Nick

 

[agent_zed]

I'm guessing you welded the frame together?

 

I prefer the leather finish, adds a bit of a softer touch rather than sharp edges etc, the polycarb would be a clear sheet say 3-4mm thick as a decent window, but I'll get to that once a frame is sorted

 

Yep sorry should have said it was mild steel welded up. Also where the hinge goes i doubled up width so i had 30mm for the hinge mounting. Steel was pretty cheap when i bought it a few years ago. I bought the flat and 3m of 3/4 in tube for about £12. Can't remember if it was 6m or 12m of flat though. prob 6m.

 

hooding wasn't much £12 a metre i think and £6 for the clear tent window (with enough to do a window in the roof i have yet to make).

 

If you polycarbed for the window you could always screw that to the frame and then glue a strip of vinyl around to make it look like a traditional door.

 

Oh i also didn't want nuts showing on the inside of the windscreen pillar so i tapped some rod and made little lugs i welded on so i bolt (6mm button allen heads) into the lugs.

 

as above though many ways to do the same thing.

[agent_zed]

took a few pics incase you are interested

 

(still need to tidy some loose ends)

 

 

Made the hinges myself as i wanted it so when i removed the doors the only part remaining is the aluminium block.