How do you make it rain in California?... buy a speedster.

Ted,

Very nice work! Thanks for sharing.

Art

DANG, Ted! Nice job, my brutha! 

Wow.     

Ted.......Outstanding!

My 25+ year old body has a few cracks in the gel coat... well at least your body is young... Mine has cracks in the gel coat too now that I am over 60  

By the way nice job on alignment.

Very nicely done, Ted! Just one thing-

"I should have spent that 5 speed  money on a paint job."

You go wash your mouth out with soap right now!

Ted,

You've got skills, man. 

"You know, like nunchuck skills, bow-hunting skills, computer hacking skills. Girls only like guys who have great skills."

HA! Oh come on guys. You are too kind. Most of this stuff is just scary to think about and we psych ourselves out before we even try it. 

That door alignment was so simple I bet even  @Former Member could almost do it himself.  Granted we all know he wouldn't have let his door slip out of his hand and flop over onto the floor/table/etc - and scratch then hell out of it.  

Check back when I have to assemble the axles and install that 5 speed!  We'll see how well the skills play out then.

Skills that impress me? Those who can paint and weld. Those people are artists! And then there is Brian - he built his entire car! (he's nuts...)

Al you cracked me up on the soap joke..

Ted: Thanks very much for that tutorial. I will save it for the Spyder build: aligning all the panels is apparently Job One. 

Ted, I'm impressed with your skills, but I'm even more impressed that you were able to do this without making three trips to Home Depot.

As it happens, I've got exactly the same alignment problem. The bottom, rear corner of my driver's door is out by about the same amount your passenger door was while the top lines up pretty well. I've lived with this since the car was new, but your post gives me hope that mere mortals can align the doors on these things.

If I'm reading your post right, the fix was the shim, but you had to completely realign the door because you took the door off the hinge. And you had to do that because you couldn't fit 'a socket' in to remove the hinge from the body with the door still attached to the hinge.

Do I have all of that right?

What puzzles me is that my doors' bolts have torx heads, so it looks like you could get some sort of right-angled handle in there with a torx bit to remove the doors from the body. In theory, you could then drop in a shim and avoid all the hassle of completely realigning the door. It should just bolt back on where it was, top to bottom and side to side.

In fact, I'm thinking if I know that only the top hinge has to be shimmed out a bit, I could fix this by just unbolting the top hinge from the body, sliding in a shim, and rebolting, without undoing anything on the lower hinge at all.

But that sounds too easy.

What am I missing?

TRP posted:

That door alignment was so simple I bet even  @Former Member could almost do it himself.  Granted we all know he wouldn't have let his door slip out of his hand and flop over onto the floor/table/etc - and scratch the hell out of it.  

 

I don't know, Ted; Teby is pretty new around here...

And as for the door, I feel your pain. These things happen.

Mitch - you have the same bolts I have. The body side bolts are about 2" long. You can put a Torx bit on a small ratchet to get everything loose but you quickly run out of room in the door jamb. If I could have just backed off that top hinge I would have. I can post a photo of what I ran into if it will help.

About the door scratches. I wet sanded and buffed it. Not too bad. Just one scratch left.

Mitch - I think I get what youre asking. You want to back off the top bolts just enough to be able to slide a shim in. Humm... It should be theoretically possible. Your shim would need to account for the existing bolts. So where mine is solid with 3 holes in it which essentially trap the shim.  Your shim would have 3 slots in it... Like the letter 'E'.  In hindsight... If you can pull that off you would save a bit of fiddling with the alignment. Remember that you want the hinge to sit flat so you can't just shim the front or back. 

All that said - If i were to do it over? I would shim the door side of the hinge (between the door and the hinge).  Why? Right now your hinge points are plumb and true. The door swings freely with zero effort, right? When you put a shim between the body and the hinge the two hinge points are no longer plumb. Placing the shim on the door side would not change the hinge line. My passenger door doesn't swing as freely as it did prior. Its nothing bad but its noticeable. Maybe its all in my head? Maybe Im over thinking it?

Ted

Ted,

I think you should take it off, drop it again, and put the shim on the other side. Then you could color sand (again), and think of something else you might have done differently.

We get extra credit for degree of difficulty!

WTTM.

Ted, I didn't realize how long the bolts were and now get the clearance problem you had.

I was also thinking that just some washers, slotted as shown in this photo, might work (they might have to be trimmed on the edges, too).

How thick was the shim stock you used?

Here's a photo of my door edge. The top actually aligns pretty well, but gets gradually worse towards the bottom. It's amazing to me that they would have shipped the car this way. If I were closer, I'd have just taken it back to VS for adjustment. As it was, though, I wanted to get the mechanical issues sorted first before worrying about stuff like this.

PS: And now, reading your latest post, I was wondering about the two hinges going out of plumb, too. Do you think just loosening the top hinge (at the door to hinge side), without loosening the bottom hinge at all, would mantain alignment?

In other words, would loosening the door side at the top, sliding in the shim, and retightening maintain alignment?

I figure this would lessen the chances of dropping the door, too.

I used 1mm stock. 

The door to hinge union is pretty interesting. On my car there is a tapped metal plate  that floats around. This is what gives you the adjustment. Loosen the bolts too much and youll hear a... 'thud' as that plate falls to the bottom of the door. 

If i were in your shoes (size.. 10.5...11?) I would prop the door up on the extreme end so as not to stress the bottom hinge. Once you have that set... Dive in. Even if the door moves its pretty simple to adjust.

In the photo above is that door completely closed? You may want to move that striker in a few MM. But one thing at a time.

Once you get finished its pretty satisfying. 

You've got this maaaaan!

Soooo... this was in my in box Saturday morning: 

That's what a pile of cash and 18 months looks like.

Anthony will most likely install the trans for me. If he does Im going to miss the WCC.

If I install it I will most likely break down on the WCC. 

We will see when it ships.

Excellent! What happened with the mainshaft?

They had to make a whole new batch. Gary went through 4  before he found one we liked. Goldie locks and the 4 mainshafts. One (my original) was ground too small after they modified it. The second one?  Same. Third had pits we didn't like. Fourth was juuuust right. Now that it's all done it should ship sometime this coming week.  

Need to have some tabs welded on to the frame horns and then figure out my next move with the axles. WCC seems like a long shot.

I'll believe it's over once it is in the car.

The tabs will be welded when the trans is fitted, for proper spacing.

PS- you could be up and running in 2-3 weeks...