And what size are all the small nuts that hold everything together?? Not standard imperial for sure. Closest I could get was 9mm and that was a bit loose. Having said that, most of them needed ground/cut off. W/w maybe??
And as for the steel plate down the front edge and along to bottom. I'll need to get my fabricating hat on again.
When you start fabbing steel door plates...just a thing I did on the first set I did I copied what was left of the old one and made it as one whole piece including the long angle suppport if you like that runs down from the top to the end of the horizontal plate made a pair and looked great but had to rework them a bit when I fitted them in to the door the second lot I made was a bit trickier but got better results because the door shelf is on an angle I made the two plates as before bolted them into the door whist hanging the door as well (just to be sure) then got an 90 deg of plate and the long support welded them in place lot better but they are a nightmare.....on the first car when I took it to be sprayed steve the guy who painted it(who made a brilliant job) asked about removing the doors to paint I stood there and shook my head said "you can take em off but youll not get em back on " the second door set on EPP im confident you could take the doors off and on and not have much of a problem.... did the same with the window mech frame made the top part but made/ left the bottom part that fits to the shelf off fitted them independently and fixed them together in place only when I was sure as I could be that they wouldn't miss shape door .. when i fitted the frame in for the final time i put a bit of fibre glass filler underneath this helped if the door skins uneven just gave it a bit of a cushion good luck....
i had a sleepless night just thinking about your sleepless night....
Over all the cars I have owned (P&W) I have only ever done one set of doors to fruition.
I got a guy to make/weld me a pair of elongated triangle shapes in ali that go the full length of the bottom of the inner door. The long sloping edge of the triangle that passes diagonally across the inner door skin was an extruded U section which we put a curve into so it followed the curve of the door skin and doesn't get in the way of the window glass.
Unfortunately I got him to make a pair of door hinge plates and replicate the hinges as well (with bronze bushes, the whole 9 yards) this was not a good idea as he made them like for like and ali does not have the same strength characteristics!
Anyhoo, I fitted the door plates, I added weights to replicate glass/frame/trim etc attached the door, got it somewhere near and bonded the ali triangle inside. bolts go through the vertical part of the triangle plate, through the door shut face and through the hingable plate. aaaand bolted it all together.......
THEN I CUT THE DOOR SKIN OFF AND RE-BONDED IT ON!
IMHO it was quicker this way. I screwed a couple of lengths of 2x1 across the outer face of the door skin, mixed up a batch of P40, whipped it on the exposed door frame edge and pressed the skin on. when happy with the spacing/shape/in line effect with the wings i screwed to the outer edges of the front and back. let it set. then got inside the car and finished off the bonding process.....jasus did I go through a bonding process with this car!
As for the actual door shut gap all round you can just get a piece of 3mm acrylic, cut it into a strip say, 30mm wide, cover both faces with double sided tape (carpet tape is good as its usually 50mm wide) apply paper (grade to suit, maybe 180?) and sand all the way round, instant door gaps that look stunning (to the non believers!)
if he 3mm doesn't give you enough clearance on the front vertical edge when opening the door etc just go for 5mm acrylic strip.
In my small world of model makers we call these monkey sticks as you have probably seen monkeys make tools to get termites out of the mounds
For some unknown reason the glass frame doesn't fit well on the near side. you end up with a gap at the top. I was pretty happy with the fit everywhere else so to my shame I just added an extra strip of rubber to the top of the door seal on that side
Mike, if you want to call me and have a chat, please do as this may not make sense!
B for me is the better...you've also got to remember when fitting a door is theres no weight in it. ie fittings, glass, door card and upholstery....i know it sounds crude but i put a couple of house bricks at the end of the door to mimic the extra weight plus it gives you a better feel to the swing of the door when your opening and closing it. you kind off have to fit the door with it lifting up towards the back of the car...plus another little thing i did was where the lip is on the body that runs parallel to the bottom of the door just inside where the tank fits i pop riveted length of 20mm aluminium angle ,then bobbed a bit of fibreglass on top set up nice of course...this takes the flex out of the sill plus when you fit the door sill plates over the tanks it give you something to screw into instead of thin air.... im not saying these these thing are the right way but i found it worked for me
Timmy, B was my preferred option too. Adding weight to the grp shell to replicate the weight of all the metal and glass was a good tip and probably wouldn't have occurred to me.
Frank, think I've already discovered that nothing on a Peerless is the same from one side to the other.
This will hurt your head. I used MGB hinges so I can get some adjustments into the door fitment. They won't look original, but with proper panel covers it won't be terrible.
A good idea, Dean but I'm sticking with the originals. There's no wear on the pins and they still work as intended. I appreciate that they're a bit agricultural and undoubtedly there are much better solutions but given that they work and that I want to get on with the project I can't see the point of spending more time (& £££) on a solution to a problem that (at least, at present) doesn't exist. That may all change once the body and doors are fitted though and I'll keep that option in mind.
