Have wings, can fly
I’ve been meaning to replace my Land Rover Discovery 1 rear side windows with gullwing doors for quite some time now. In fact, I’ve had all the bits necessary sitting in a box on the shelf for well over a year. So, when the Corona lockdown happened upon us, I guess I ran out of excuses as to why I couldn’t get around to finally doing them, and so, here we go. For those who are interested I’ve laid out the process as simply as I can using photos with brief explanations. Anyone with questions and/or seeking more information please feel free to contact me.
The hinges, locks and 350mm gas struts were purchased from McNaughtan’s (bus, canopy, trailer & truck components), the door seal from Rubber Products & Mouldings Pty Ltd, and the 5mm countersunk machine screws, washers and lock-nuts from a regular hardware store.
Just before lockdown, in anticipation of wanting to get on with doing this during, I made up a template for the two doors using 3mm Masonite board. This I took to a local engineering company where we transferred the shape onto 3mm aluminium tread plate and they guillotined the straight edges for me. To round the corners I used a Jig-saw, fitted with a blade for cutting aluminium, and followed this up with some filing.
I started by removing all the internal trimming surrounding the windows.
Then I cut the surrounding rubber seal all the way around along the edge of the glass inside it, using a Stanley knife,
removed this strip of rubber and pushed the glass out from the inside,
discarded the old rubber seal and cleaned up the metalwork edge.
Onto this edge I fitted the new door seal, making sure the join was at the bottom.
I then held the doors in position (on their respective sides) against the rubber seal to check for correct size and fit, and did a bit more filing and rounding off where needed.
Attaching the hinges to the top edge of the doors was next. I thought it best to grind away the raised tread pattern in order for the hinges to fit flush against the aluminium plate, and in doing so, 12mm machine screws were the perfect length. Then I marked and drilled the holes through the vehicle body and used 30mm machine screws to fasten the hinges and hang the doors.
With the doors hanging I was able to measure and mark out where the locks needed to fit. After which I removed them again in order to drill, cut and fit all four locks, before hanging the doors back in place.
The gas struts were next. It was a bit of a fiddle holding one in place in order to work out the correct positioning, but after a manner I managed and then used the same measurements on the second door. They came with the appropriate brackets for attaching to the door (12mm machine screws) and car (12mm pop-rivets).
Note: I bought 100N gas struts, not really knowing the appropriate strength required, which are fine, but feel 120N would be better.
I’ve replaced the interior trim for now, cutting out a small recess to accommodate the gas struts, but this will all be removed when I get around to fitting out the interior with new drawers and storage units soon.
Lockdown continues and as a result so do the upgrades. I am currently busy with some dashboard repairs and will post that story too as soon as completed.
As it has been a while since last posting anything pertaining to my vehicle transformation, I thought it appropriate to include the links to my four previous posts, should anyone who hasn’t read them be interested …
