BUILDING THE NEW DOOR
1 The new doors have already been sprayed in Shire Blue and subsequently polished to an authentic shine using cutting compound and a rotary buff.
5 New window frame fillers, corner pieces and window channels are fitted using two self-drilling/tapping screws in the front, rear and top sections.
8 To keep the front window channel correctly positioned, the spacer shim is placed between it and the door frame, the screw passing through.
12 Luckily, the missing brackets are available as bolt-on parts for our new door. This lower one (right) needed trimming to avoid the door shell rib.
2 A new external door handle with new lock barrel and new body seal is fitted, with the screws greased to ensure they don’t rust up in the future.
3 Our original door latch is refitted, but using the later self-adhesive seal between the latch and inside of door shell. We retain the old waterproof covering.
4 The link rods are re-attached to the latch mechanism and are secured to the lock barrel mechanism and the external handle.
6 The window is slid into place and the channels adjusted in the door. This rear channel runs past the latch and under the inner panel’s mounting bracket.
7 The lower ends of the channels are secured with self-tapping/drilling screws, having checked the window glass slides up and down cleanly.
9 A full spacer strip (standing proud here) is fitted behind the window’s rear channel. The spacer and channel will be aligned before screwing to the shell.
10 Here, the new inner waist seal is test-fitted, then trimmed to length and permanently pressed onto the bottom of the window frame.
11 Our new door doesn’t have these two forward brackets (seen here on the old door) to secure the inner panel that holds the window regulator.
13 The inner plate fits onto the new brackets, but the mounting stud for the plate’s lower rear hole (arrowed) is in the wrong place.
14 We could fit a later inner panel, regulator and glass runner, involving work and expense. Instead Steve makes a simple bracket to join the two.
15 At the forward end, the inner panel is a perfect fit on the two additional brackets, so it is now fully bolted into place.
16 The internal lock button is inserted into its housing and the link rod attached to the door lock, then the housing is screwed to the top of the door shell.
17 Finally, the window regulator arms are located to the lift channel, the window lift operation is checked, and the door is now ready to fit.