A few weeks ago a I noticed a slight "catch" to the driver's inside door
handle. If it were to be allowed to get worse I could see where the handle
could get broken. ??
Anyway, it was just the "sliding link" part of the inside door handle
mechanism, it was as if it was past-center and trying to bind up.
But since I was already in process of stiffing-up the floppy inner door skin
I figured out a fix for the new problem at the same time. The easy way is
to just move the whole mechanism toward the front/hinges, there's room
in the holes.
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Sackman, I started a thread on FTE -asking- about bracing the inner door
skin but it went no where. :/ So I figured out how to do it myself and
posted the results and got no comments. LOL
It shot down all the ideas
posted, none of which showed an understanding of what I was complaining
about to start with.
Anyway, here it is copy and pasted...
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Popped riveted (like I meant business
a piece of 1/2" square pipe inside
the door shell...
Lined it up with the extra screws I'd put in to hold up the flimsy pocket so
now they actually have some "real metal" to screw into...
Check out those two extra screws in the carpet they made a big difference
in how sloppy the pocket is and have another screw in the front-end too.
Also added a couple more braces...
Those felt like they added strength to the door skin but wasn't so sure until
after I worked on the passenger door and installed those first! LOL
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And fixed the squirrelly feeling door handles too, while I was at it...
It now sounds nice and solid like my '75 150's doors.
And the door handles feel like they're actually screwed down to something.
{Sackman, the nut under the "9.8 bolt" there has got a large diameter
Belleville washer on it, so acts-like the steel plate you added to yours}
{but it wasn't enough to suit me :/ the added little bolt with the head
filed down was what really made it stop wiggling on the sheet metal}
{the braces made the whole sheet of metal feel more solid so it's a
double whammy LOL xD }
{the little bolt with the head filed down is a 3/8" headed, grade-8,
1/4"-28 self tapping bolt I just happen to have two of, but i drilled
1/4"+ holes for them to slide into in both the mechanism and the
door skin ;} {a tapered-reamer makes the holes nice and round}
{the little machine screw at the rear is a 10-32 and the tab at the
rear of the mechanism is tapped 10-32 and also added a nut behind,
I'm figuring on replacing those with grade-8, button-head Allen
screws someday ??}
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Now onto the flimsily-held-on plastic door panels!
Thinking about jack-nuts and screws along with filling their empty "hook
pockets" in the door panels' Christmas tree sockets so the jack-nuts'
machine screws won't smash the crap out of 'em.
The door panels are glue-able plastic so there's lots of ways to go there.
Alvin in AZ
ps- Jack nuts are like "moly-bolts" for sheet-rock but're for sheet metal...
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"It now sounds nice and solid like my '75 150's doors." -Alvin
Believe it? LOL