Door pull handles

All

If i wanted to add door pull handles, what is the best way to do so? I would assume you can not drill through the material on the doors so is there some type of he punch to get to the door card??

You can find punches anywhere, hardware stores, Sears, Home Depot, Lowes, on-line. Hammer style or hand held with a pliers-like device usually used for aluminum and light gauge sheet metal.

You can also use a drill, but you'll need to heat up a nail and melt a hole in the vinyl first and pull some of the padding away from the hole so that it doesn't wrap the drill bit. The backing is soft enough that you could run the drill in reverse and use more pressure to go through with the bit.

All sorts of easy ways to go about it, but there is still no metal backing up your handle, so maybe pull the door panels, make a nice aluminum backing plate, drill the holes and do things right.

This is the simple stuff, ought to be fun, not a problem.

Luck,

TC

Excellent. Thanks for the tips and does sound pretty simple...

Just looked on VS site and they dont seemto sell them. Anyone have any suggestions on what type to get?

Contact Carey Hines at Beck. They stock them.

carey at beckspeedster.com

BTW: I mounted a pair of those this past Summer and all I did was drill a pilot hole through the vinyl and door panel with a drill. Nothing bad happened.

Thanks Gordon

JPS Sells them as well. I put them on my VS Speedster this summer and just drilled through the vinyl and fiberglass, worked out fine.

I used Austin Healey ones from Moss Motors.
356 ones are available from Stoddards and/or Sierre Madre.

CIP1 has chrome EMPI ones. I'm using MGB ones - they have black handle with chrome end pieces.

http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=C16-111-642

Victoria British

http://www.victoriabritish.com/icatalog/mg/full.aspx?Page=14

Number 25 top section, number 11 bottom section. About $17 each. These are pretty close to the original 356 items, as close as your car is to a genuine Speedster. They look the part and are well made.


Moss is now getting $25 each for the same item,

http://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/SearchResults.aspx?SearchText=handle&WebCatalogID=0


Luck,

TC


"Nothing bad happened."

Ya . . . well that's 'cause you're as lucky as shit ! ! ! If I tried that, every scrap of backing would immediately wrap around my drill bit and I'd be left trying to pull a shredded felt grapefruit sized ball through a hole the diameter of a HB mechanical pencil lead.

Especially if you were drilling through carpet.

zzzziiiinnnnngggg! and you've got an orange-size wad between the carpet and the floor.

The trick to get around that (speaking as a guy who used to install car stereos for a living back in the 8-track and Ampex car deck days) is to dip your drill bit into floor wax (Johnson's or Butcher's) to about half the length of the drill, and then just drill through the carpet. The wax lubes the drill and the carpet won't stick or wind up around it.

(Yeah, I didn't believe it til I tried it, either!)

Dang! I learn a cool 'tech tip' every time I visit this site. Thanks for that, Gordon!

I went a different route for door pulls.

You went a different route for a bunch of stuff, Terry. Penny's all you, sir- different, and very cool.

My car has some sort of custom application. They are super sturdy and unique. Not sure if Troy Sloan made these, or if he bought it this way. I get a fair amount of compliments. Scroll down.
http://kvan.hopto.org/SerengetiSandSpeedster.htm

Steve,

Beautiful car! What do you call that color?

Rich

Nice job, Steve! Unique old style

Can't take credit for any of the choice as it was already built. The color is Serenghetti sand. It is an Infinity G35 color. It looks better in person than the pics, especially in bright or partial sunlight.