Reassembling FHC Doors

[Pianoman]

Hi,
I stripped my doors ages ago to have them worked on. Now they're back and Ive completely forgotten the sequence of how I disassembled them. Can anybody point me to a how guide? Ive unsuccessfully searched.

My big fear is how to get the frame and the glass back in. I have the doors off the car at the moment and have new A pillar rubbers to put on yet before mounting the doors.. Im intending to put the doors back on in their stripped condition and assemble the doors when they are on the car?

Never did anything like this before so I've probably made a mess of it before I even started..
Thanks

[abowie]

Put the two brackets for the window frame into the bottom of the door. Make sure all the threads are clean and turn easily before you install them because they are hard to access when assembling the door. Don't tighten them up.

Fit the external door handles and the lock. Leave the sprung links off.

Install the external rubber window scraper. You can't install it with the glass in. I use rivets, not the original clips. If the clips loosen you have to disassemble the whole door to fix them. If you fit it with silver pop rivets paint their heads black now. Otherwise you can see them through the window when you're driving. Yuk.

Put all the A pillar rubbers on before you install the door. You can't get them on with the door in place.

Put the doors on the car. You need to correctly adjust them before you put the window frame in. Be very careful you don't damage the paint at the front of the door/ A pillar interface. There is only a few mm clearance there at times.

To adjust fore and aft distance and tilt use the screws between the hinge and the door. Do not be afraid to relieve the interior door pressed panel if it interferes with access to all the screws.

To adjust the door bottom in and out for alignment with the body shell use the screws between the hinge and the body shell.

Install the winder mechanism.

Install the glass in the door frame. Make sure you have fitted new channel felt if you intend to; you can't do this with the door assembled.

Lower the door frame in from the top. In order to get the winder mechanism wheels into the channel on the bottom of the glass you need to have the door frame an inch or so above it's final position. This is a bit tricky. A helper to support the frame and the glass is a good idea. The idea is to position the winder height so that the two wheels line up with the cut-outs on the channel, so you can lever the wheels in. Use screwdrivers as levers etc.

Once the wheels are in the channel you can drop the frame down to the correct level and loosely install the nut/screw for the two brackets at the bottom of the door.

Now align the frame.

For fore and aft tilt you put spacers between the window frame and the top of the door. The easiest way to do this is to pack one end only until you get the top properly aligned with the roof line. Then you can pack it all along for height if you need to. Nip it up loosely but don't tighten it up yet.

To adjust the top of the frame in and out you use the brackets in the bottom of the door and bend them or pack them with washers; whatever works. Sometimes you may need to judiciously bend the frames. Poor fit is not uncommon.

Now tighten everything down and see if it still lines up.

Once you have all of your alignment correct you can install the rest of the door opening mechanism. Last, install the door striker and adjust until the door closes and latches. Again, this can be quite difficult. If you have used replacement panels here you may find that you end up needing to oval holes etc to get the door to latch. If the captive nut plate threads are stripped you can access this through the void behind the B pillar.

Now install the B pillar seal, then finally the seals around the door frame ( top edge of the seal points out) and the chrome support for the quarter window (top edge points in).

Install the chrome trim and rubber seal at the bottom of the door opening.

Done.

[PeterCrespin]

Quality post Andrew, thank you! It reminds me why I like motorbikes.

[Pianoman]

Andrew,
you an absolute gentleman, I really appreciate the effort involved in making this post, it goes well beyond the call of duty. I am sure several people will get so much help and instruction from it too.

thanks again
donal

[abowie]

You're welcome Donal. You can see that I've done this too many times. I bet I've missed something out though...

[Gfhug]

I shall be making very good use of this advice in the near future and add my thanks to you, Andrew

Geoff

Good enough to go here: http://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=700 ?