Door Striker pins

[Chris P]

Following the lengthy attentions of Rich to my ill fitting early doors on vin 522, I am having some new striker pins made, some a bit longer and some a bit shorter. Does any one else want any? get rid of the pile of washers perhaps ?

They shouldn't be expensive, but don't know how much yet.

Regards

Chrispy

[Rissy]

Possibly. Dunno yet. My doors have been needing adjusting for a long time. I need to be able to adjust my body panels first though, which means I need the replacement parts that will break when I do that though. Talked to Dave H at Tatton Park last summer, and gave him a list of the parts I want to buy from him before I can begin, so I'm expecting an answer any day now.... :wink:

Both my doors can only be closed properly from OUTSIDE the car!

[stunned_monkey]

Lex still has fibreglass under the striker pin washers. You can recess the pins further if you cut out the fibreglass as per the service bulletin.

The doors shut fine when I sold the car.. someone fiddled around with them since I believe

[Rissy]

stunned_monkey Wrote:Lex still has fibreglass under the striker pin washers. You can recess the pins further if you cut out the fibreglass as per the service bulletin.

The doors shut fine when I sold the car.. someone fiddled around with them since I believe

The doors have never been right since I bought LEX. Sometimes, with a bit of knack, you could get them to close properly, but it was always touch and go, and always required a teeth shattering slam to do it.
I cringed every time, and even more so when mates would try to close the passenger side themselves, and hit the striker pins awkwardly instead.
A previous G/F really did a good job on the passenger side door when she lost patience with it.
I swear she must have been pretty close to breaking the glass in the door when she lost the plot.
Needless to say, I was not in the best of moods with her when she did that.
The door has never been the same since, and now i'm insistent on doing it myself for passengers from the outside.
So when driving, at least that door is closed properly, but then there's no-one there to close the door on the driver's side behind me, so it always sits ajar.
It's closed, and locked, on both pins, but not in the same position as when closed when outside the car.
From the outside, I can align the close to match the panels, but from inside, it's impossible. Even for Rich H!
The doors got so bad that Welmoed had a bash at aligning them. He did a good job. They worked much better, BUT, the car looked awful as nothing aligned with the panels surrounding. It look CRAP! So....i purposely misaligned them again, to make them match the panels, so they don't look so crap. I know, i know....i know this isn't the right thing to do, hence why I want to do it properly, and hence I've tried to order an assortment of parts from Dave H...but without any luck, even after chase up phone calls to him, trying to remind him.
So i'm gonna have to give up and order them from Ed instead.
I guess I should actually be ordering the parts for my holiday, but try to sort them out AFTER Yorkshire, so i'm not stressed out trying to do it, with the clock ticking leading UP to the event.

[stunned_monkey]

STOP TRYING TO ALIGN THE DOORS TO THE PANELS! Align the panels to the doors, if that doesn't work, ask yourself if you wouldn't rather sell Lex and buy a late DeLorean when the guys in Dunmurry got better at their jobs. I was always happy that they sealed, didn't rattle or leak and had a uniform panel gap. That the quarters sat slightly proud and they needed a bit of a slam was a VERY small price to pay. Others are a lot worse - as are Lex's now from what you're saying.

[Rissy]

Oh dear Martin. You finished?

As I said. I know, I know. It's a short term measure until I get the bits I need to try and align the panels.

[Rissy]

...if anyone is near Dave H, and wanted to help me out, i'd appreciate it. I have a small shopping list, which I emailed him. I could email YOU it, instead, and YOU (whoever is close to him, and can pay him a visit for me) could purchase the bits for me and post them to me, and I could pay you back...?

Ed wants just under £100 for the bits I want, plus P&P, and i'm not even sure I can get the primary item I need/want for fixing my doors (part ref: SP10691) since his site only allows you to add 1 to your shopping basket, saying that he only has 1!? I want 40. 30 for the car immediately, and 10 as usable spares if/when any break! I don't want to order from the US. Despite the even more extreme costs involved, it would take a month or more to get to me! I'd like the bits ready for just after Yorkshire.

[RobScott]

hi mate, I work in manchester, i could pop into his place, and get the bits for you?

does anyone have his address?

cheers

[Rissy]

RobScott Wrote:hi mate, I work in manchester, i could pop into his place, and get the bits for you?

does anyone have his address?

cheers

That would be fantastic if you could.

His details, from the front end of this club website:

CLUB PRESIDENT
Dave Howarth
17 Merlewood Drive
Astley
Tyldesley
Manchester
M29 7PG
TEL: 01942 882331

My shopping list:

PIN RETAINER SP10691 - 40 off.
PANEL NUT SP10700 - 10 off.
CAPTIVE NUT SP10804 (also known as SP10718) - 8 off.
SEAL CAP 106915 - 2 off.
COVER, LOUVRE MTG BRKT 108943 - 2off.
PVC PLUG SP10397 - 2 off.

I don't know what he has or doesn't have, but i've been told he's got most bits. For a kick off, the most important ones are the Pin retainers, but if I could get all parts, that would be awesome. Anything to save on the costs from Ed or the States. As I say, for the above list, Ed wants roughly £97 + P&P. So any saving on this would be good.

[stunned_monkey]

I had a pile of originals from Dave ages ago (not for Lex) and they were just as brittle as the ones on the car (due to age). You should try and get reproductions.

Can't see how they'll help with door alignment though....

[Rissy]

stunned_monkey Wrote:I had a pile of originals from Dave ages ago (not for Lex) and they were just as brittle as the ones on the car (due to age). You should try and get reproductions.

Can't see how they'll help with door alignment though....

Where's the confusion? I want to align the doors, so that they work correctly, or as near damn it as possible. Welmoed got them ok when he had a shot. THEN, once the doors are ok, THEN I can attempt to align the surrounding panels to the doors in their new positions for correct operation. I can't align the panels without having the capability of putting the car back together again, which I can't do if I don't have the sacrificed replacement parts to do this with. The point is, I don't want working doors to the point where the surrounding car panels are all skee-wiff and shoddy looking. It just looks terrible.

As for the brittle parts, I appreciate they might be like this, hence wanting 40 not 30. I'm hoping I can make them more supple by soaking them in HOT water before "clicking" in the rocker cover on to them. I don't know where I can get re-manufactured equivalents? If Ed's are re-manufactured, then, this would be fine, except his site is telling me he only has ONE of them available!? I would like to see if there is a better design for this whole area in all honesty, rather than having to rely on these little clips which break all the time. I mean, what's the point in that!? Surely the panel can be held into place with something made of metal, more like how the front grill is clicked into position on the push fittings or something?

[Chris P]

Calm down boys...please.....You know me, I like to see a nice orderly, friendly forum. If it turns nasty, I won't look at it and the same goes for quite lot of other silent members. If we want an abusuive forum, there are doubtless others around that fit that particular bill!........anyway preaching over.

Getting back to my pins.

My 81 year old engineer friend has just been around ( he looks younger than me at 64) He is brilliant bloke. ....literally, in his time he has worked on some of the most fantastic engines and cars you can imagine.
His solution, which I have accepted, is to turn off the little end buttons, make new ones, change the total length of the pin as necessary, fix a new buttons back on by drilling and tapping the centre of the remaining shaft. And before you start Martin, he rattled off all the various loads, stresses and strains it would take. Be interesting to see if he's right.

Chris p

[Chris P]

It can be very frustrating when the doors are acting up.

My sons friend had a quick sit in my car on Saturday evening and we spent nearly 3 hours ( well Rich did) trying to open it . Simon got fed up after half an hour and climbed over the central consul! I'm just glad it happened when it did, at least were got the chance to sort it out before our meeting. ....hopefully.

( sorry Martin and Rissey I shouldn't have sounded off)

[Rich H]

Quote:....hopefully.

Whadaya mean "hopefully"?

I'll have you know my door lock adjustments come with a cast iron guarantee! :lol:

[stunned_monkey]

Chris P Wrote:And before you start Martin, he rattled off all the various loads, stresses and strains it would take. Be interesting to see if he's right.

You can pass on this little nugget: The Alpine GTA (a car whose doors tend to fit properly) has an M8x1.0mm thread and those strikers have a habit of snapping off. I spent £35 on a helicoil kit to fix one on my Venturi...

Why not do it properly and turn some up from scratch from hex bar stock?

Frankly I can't understand why anyone would deliberately and badly compromise the function of a door because it looks a tiny bit wonky when against the panels around it. #4772's doors overlap the rear quarters at the base. Absolutely nothing to do there, been like it since new. The hole in the underbody is quite simply too small. On Lex, the holes are cock-eyed. What can you do? Accept that it's a DeLorean and be done with it is my advice....