Door Cards and Window Mechanisums

Hi all,

Since acquiring my HiJet (aka Pop Rivet) it's been put through an MoT and been taxed, I've managed to service it - sort of - and now to all intents and purposes its road legal and usable. However, the wife managed to damage the near side passenger door mechanisum through no real fault of her own, I've stripped out the 'wheel chair adaption' only to reveal a nightmare of wiring, including a bodged tow hitch...It all came to a bit of a head the other day when the drivers side window disappeared from view, landing with a clonk at the bottom of the door.

It just so happened that a mate had come over to visit and commented that the very same thing had occured on his Dad's HiJet, had I tried changing the spark plugs yet was his next question........

So the following day, with nothing better to do (snowed in), we set about trying to rectify the shabby panel cards and fix the window so that at least it stayed in one place without the aid of duct tape!

I've bunged a few photos in here, but briefly having been advised about the spring clips holding the levers on I carefully set about investigating with a blunt bladed tool and a torch (not strictly necessary, but hey you never know). I managed to work out how the clips should be removed and dug into my tool box for a handly little gizmo I've had for a few years. Primarly its supposed to be for putting springs back on motorcycle centre stands but it works just as well at poping the clips off and out the back of HiJet door levers!



Once I got the levers off, it was obvious that somebody else had been there before and didn't know about the clips - bit of a mess really, but never mind............ (Bloomin bodgers). The door cards where then ease off, again it was obvious that the panels had been off before as some of the mounting hardware had been damaged and looked in need of replacement.



These are the two rear panels - note the cut out for speakers, pity there aren't any fitted to the van..............



Panel stripped of all the nasty old materials. Fortunately for us whoever it was in the factory who covered these panels prefered staples (approx 4mm) to glue, lots of staples, 1000's of bloddy staples....



On stripping the panels it became obvious that most had at some time been soaked, and as they are only made of hard board this meant that they warped and then rotted. I used two tubes of impact adhesive and some heavy duty card to 'make do and mend' for now, some of the worse parts.



Choice of replacement material was entirely down to me - it's my van so SWMBO didn't get a chance to voice an opinion; she did that when I got home with a 5m lenght of dark urban DPM and wadding...

Fortunatley my lass is easy going and 2 minutes later she was diving in lending a hand sorting the panels out and offering some useful advice. Normally, when refurbishing an item I try to follow the factory in their methods, but on this occasion I really did think that the 4mm staples were a bit naff, besides have you tried to get a staple gun that will fire them?? So after a bit of head scratching I opted for the hot glue gun, which works really well but needs two people to make life easier.

Having repaired the panels as best we could, I then used an aerosol adhesive to attach the wadding (in two or more layers) to the panels, we then left them to dry for a full 24 hours - probably way more than needed, but it stopped the complaints about fumes etc. as I was working on the dinning room table .

After the aerosol had dried it was then time for the covering. Having watched loads of episodes of 'Pimp My Ride' etc. I felt well able to tackle this job......................................

It didn't go to badly!!!!! Once we got the hang of it - I pumped hot glue and Sally only burnt her self a couple of times laying down the material - result or what!!

The finished panels have come out rather tidy, like the pattern or not, far better than the red and white checkers somebody else suggested



Having got that sorted - only two more panels to do and it will look a lot neater.

I only had two more major issues to resolve; the none opening door (useful, but not essential) and the disappearing, self opening window - far more of a security risk........ As the door panel was already off , sitting in the dining room as part of the recovering production line, it seemed sensible to investigate the window winder mechanisum and see what was what?





Thats fairly obvious...... some cack handed erk has given it a bit of beating in the past, instead of investigating why the window had jammed.





While trying to remove the mechanisum I came across an infuriating problem - an not a bodge for once! This was a factory snafu. One of the bolts used to mount the winder gear into the door didn't have enough thread cut into it. As a result once it was wound in, it wouldn't come back out - and not for want of trying either! I resorted to drilling the head off and then replaced it with a better item and a washer, once I had checked the thread of course.

Some pretty heavy handedness and thats for sure.............. Whats with the masking tape and cable tie anyway??

Removing the tape and tie revealed the mother of all bodges and a broken rail, so out came the mig and 5 minutes later I had a repair



Having effected the repair, I set about reassembling the mechanisum back into the door while Sal took the glass away and gave it a dam good clean. This only left me to ponder how the window should be bonded back into the carrier??? It looked like some one had used a combination of sticky pads and bathroom sealant in the past; I've opted for Impact adhesive - if that doesn't work I'll give the Windscreen Specialists a call and see what they can recommend.

Hope somebody finds this useful!!!

Tomorrow I'm going to try and get the side door lock fixed and I might even get the tow hitch rewired (properly this time!)

Pollyurathane adheisive is the stuff, some times branded as sikoflex.

I dont think they are speaker holes in the back cards, think they are for seatbelts.

Great job on the window winder, and your doorcards look wicked fella!! Dont get lost in the jungle =)

holes in cards are for rear seatbelts.. mines the MPV and has same shape plastic with seat belt through it.

Intresting about the sear belt mounting holes!!! The two rear seats in Pop Rivet fold sideways against each side of the van, presumeably to make room for a wheel chair - it's an ex-motobility vehicle. The belts for the seats are slightly odd, they mount high and low against the sides of the van and the lock is on a 'removable' stalk that slides in a tracking fixed to the floor. I'll post a picture up when I get it all back in the van - its all removed at the moment so I can take a mates (Crashed) VFR 800 to London for him.

If the seat belts are on the rear most pillar just inside the tail gate then they are the same as the MPV for the rear bench seat the ones in the cards are for the 2 reclining passenger seats.

Rich.

Situation Update:

Not Good. As we all know the door cards mount to the relevant panel using those stupid plastic 'plugs', and if the card is warped as mine surely are due to getting damp/wet then they never stay in the right place. After due consideration I decided to that in keeping with the urban cam colour scheme I would fix the problem by using black self tappers and cup washers.

After a search around the net I came to the conclusion that nobody seems to make black stainless steel countersunk screws or black cup washers; you can get zinc or brass, but not black. I solved the problem with the cup washers with a can of B&Q BBQ satin black aerosol, in the end I compromised over the screws and purchased some dull stainless ones.

Wanting this to be neat and tidy, I set about carefully with my electric drill fitted with a 2.5mm drill bit to pre-drill the relevant holes in the finished panel so I could attach them using the screws and cups; and thats when the problem arose! Everytime I tried to drill a hole the wadding we had used to 'pad' the panels wrapped its self around the drill bit and then dragged it off course. This meant larger than necessary holes in the cloth (Grrrr) and holes in the door card in the incorrect place. Not happy bunny...

After some discussion in which questions like: 'why didn't you think about this before' and 'didn't you know this was going to happen' were uttered, I came to the conclusion the only thing I could do, if I wanted to keep my coach built look, would be to remove the offending wadding and find a differant material.

Fortunatley there is a great shop in Exeter called 'Langans' who supply all different types of foam amongst other things (its a favourite place for folks building chops etc. needing seating materials), and a quick trip there located a 2m x 1m strip of high density foam. With hindsight I should have gone to somewhere like Aldi or Lidls and bought a couple of their cheap roll mats, but you can't always gaurantee that they will have any. Besides which I only want to do this job again once, so I figure buy the right stuff in the first place.

So there you have it - Do Not use wadding material as an intermediate layer if you intend to drill the panel at a later date....... Use 5mm high density foam!

I'm in the workshop painting at the moment, but as soon as Sal and I get around to re-doing the panels (probably tomorrow) then I post up some more pictures.

I did manage to stop the fan belt squeeling, but I am surpise how much it has stretched?? Hopefully, I'll get the tow bar electrics and rear heater system sorted soon

Cheers All.