Side door changing it?

[Kirk]

Heya guys, well i currently have a side door which opens out and hits the front door, it also has massive hinges, that just ruin the body line. I have seen those split doors (the judge) and gull doors (although would make it hard to open in a parking lot) and even my old mum had a suggestion of doing it like a space ship where half drops to the ground and half opens like a lift door, and the bottom half has a couple of stairs on it, how hard/easy would these modifications be?

1/ Just moving the hinges inside?

2/ Making a Gull lift door?

3/ Cutting in two, have the two pieces open like a crocadile?

[Bullstik]

i thought about getting door hinges from another car..

[ben]

you can do whatever you put your mind to kirk..

yeh few visits to th wreckers and youll have some material ready for what ever you want to do!

borrow or buy an angle grinder, mig, some bog and a lot of time!!!!!! youll have it done in no time!!

ben

[Kirk]

you can do whatever you put your mind to kirk..

yeh few visits to th wreckers and youll have some material ready for what ever you want to do!

borrow or buy an angle grinder, mig, some bog and a lot of time!!!!!! youll have it done in no time!!

ben

The whole goal tho is to keep it bog free, and no patchups. How much do mig welders cost?

[hammers_spanners]

Kirk

Gasless MIGS are on ebay and go for as little as $200 but the quality is questionable. A decent name brand will cost somewhere around $700 for a basic gas MIG.

If you haven't done any welding before NMIT has welding short courses

http://www.nmit.vic.edu.au/shortcourses/welding/nmit_smm039.html

[Bren]

you can get gas/gasless migs for not much more too.
They are a better idea because you just need a bottle and regulator to upgrade to gas when you want to. (and its very likely that you will want to) the main difference is that the polarity is reversed for gassless migs.

the one drama you will have with cheaper gasless migs is that they dont have much controll.
you should try and get one that has an adjustable amp range, preferably not just a high / low switch. and the same goes for the wire speed. if it doesn't have a wire speed control its useless unless you happen to fluke the right gauge metal for the set speed/amps.

[ben]

kirk its ok to use bog..

its easy to think that everything should be done without bog because we just hear horror stories where a van has just been bogged up o it looks good but its actually got huge holes in it..

if its welded and a small amount of bog is used thats normal.. bog only breaks down if it gets wet.. if you have welded and bogged then painted it will last forever without breaking down and falling out..

you simply cant do panel work without bog unless you use an old skool method called lead filling, which i have never seen done but hear its rather time consuming and its not very practice in todays times.. all panel beaters use bog, the better you get thou the less you use thats all..

cheers
ben

[Sundownernz]

Hi Kirk,

I had similar ideas about changing my side door as those hinges just don't do it for me. However I do like the idea of being able to open the door right round.

I was going to gull wing it but the problem as you mentioned is parking lots. As parking spaces are now so small and beddies are wide, getting it open to get in or out in a parking lot would be a pain. I though of hiding the hinges and the top front passengers door hinge would be the obvious one to use (need two of them). You would need to strengthen the pillar but would be an easy fit. The door would then only open the same amount as the front door but both would then match when opened. Like the split door option but the bottom half would have to be strong as you will be walking on it to get in and out, sort of like steps on some small planes.

Another option I looked at was a vertical opening door like on a wall mounted oven. Would get the door out of the way and only take up half the room of a gull wing to open in a parking lot. You need a tall garage though as the top of the door would end up about 1.5 metres above the roof line. Could be some tricky hinge design needed but would be something different.

Haven't decided on a final path yet but at this stage will probaly just go with hiding the hinges using the front door top hinge.

Garry.

[Jeff]

I don't know if I can explain this well enough.
Have a good look at a front door on a modern highway coach. They close like an aircraft door, and it's very simple.
The whole thing is supported by a pole on the inside, with semicircular hinge bars attached inside the door, which hinge at that point also.
The door opens and slides back without any rails, but has a small arm attached to the bottom front of the door and the other end underneath the bus; this bar stops the front of the door swinging out and keeps it parallel to the side of the vehicle.
You would need to give some thought to how this bar could work on a Beddie, maybe it should go at the top.

I have just been thinking about your stove door design Garry. This is quite similar but mounted on its side.

[Lyndon]

Kirk i have a gull wing door on my van if you like i can take pics of it to show you the fitment.