Check out my 24" wheels, now what??

[insanebehavior]

I have not had much of a chance to take many pictures this week so last night I decided to snap a few on the progress. With no experience with suicide doors we went through the painful process of trial and error. I ordered a set of hinges from autoloc. This was after searching for hinges and with no experience the universal hinges worried me. When I saw the autoloc hinge first they looked pretty fancy. The backing plate was about 18 inches tall and the hinges were aluminum and 3 inches wide so I thought this would be a good secure start. They did have plenty of adjustment and I knew when polished the aluminum hinge would look killer. Unfortunately, they would not work because the door would hit the the side of the cab when swinging open. The problem was the the radius on the hinge was to small to swing the door out. Our solution was to build a pair of hinges using the same design as the autoloc hinges incorporating the larger radius. It worked. Our main concern and not shown in the pictures is keeping the door jam sturdy because of these hinges hanging on the door jam. We plan on welding in some additional supports in the back to keep the door sturdy when open. I ordered my one piece side window glass from One Piece Products. For anyone out there looking the eliminate the window vent this system is pretty cool because there is not need for a filler in the front part of the door when you delete the vent. The kit was close to $600 and came with all of the hardware and glass. I have yet to install it but while talking to One Piece Products we got on the subject of flush mounting the front windshield. I did consider the option of having a front windshield made about 1/2" bigger than the original glass. At $1600 it would have been a nice improvement but if the window was ever broken OUCH!!!!! We decided to break some new window channel and weld it on. Around the corners we had to cut this channel in 1 inch pieces and pieced the radius together. We then welded all of in and have started shaping. It looks killer and if anyone has any suggestions I would be grateful. This is what I love about this forum because there are so many helpful and supportive people!!!

THANKS, MARK

[bagged69chevy]

Originally Posted by insanebehavior

I have not had much of a chance to take many pictures this week so last night I decided to snap a few on the progress. With no experience with suicide doors we went through the painful process of trial and error. I ordered a set of hinges from autoloc. This was after searching for hinges and with no experience the universal hinges worried me. When I saw the autoloc hinge first they looked pretty fancy. The backing plate was about 18 inches tall and the hinges were aluminum and 3 inches wide so I thought this would be a good secure start. They did have plenty of adjustment and I knew when polished the aluminum hinge would look killer. Unfortunately, they would not work because the door would hit the the side of the cab when swinging open. The problem was the the radius on the hinge was to small to swing the door out. Our solution was to build a pair of hinges using the same design as the autoloc hinges incorporating the larger radius. It worked. Our main concern and not shown in the pictures is keeping the door jam sturdy because of these hinges hanging on the door jam. We plan on welding in some additional supports in the back to keep the door sturdy when open. I ordered my one piece side window glass from One Piece Products. For anyone out there looking the eliminate the window vent this system is pretty cool because there is not need for a filler in the front part of the door when you delete the vent. The kit was close to $600 and came with all of the hardware and glass. I have yet to install it but while talking to One Piece Products we got on the subject of flush mounting the front windshield. I did consider the option of having a front windshield made about 1/2" bigger than the original glass. At $1600 it would have been a nice improvement but if the window was ever broken OUCH!!!!! We decided to break some new window channel and weld it on. Around the corners we had to cut this channel in 1 inch pieces and pieced the radius together. We then welded all of in and have started shaping. It looks killer and if anyone has any suggestions I would be grateful. This is what I love about this forum because there are so many helpful and supportive people!!!

THANKS, MARK

Hey mark, I think the hinges that you first purchased were the Electric Life billet hinges. (correct me if im wrong) I was actually considering purchasing those hinges for my truck... Would you consider making me a pair of your hinges too? Let me know.. Thanks!

Nick

[insanebehavior]

in hind sight we spent a lot of time building those hinges. they look awesome but i personally feel like autoloc makes another set of suicide door hinges i feel are much easier to install. i will post a picture of them and a typical installation. others on the forum may have other ideas but this is my opinion. these hinges allow for plenty of hinge swing altlhough the mounting plate must be recessed in the door. because we were experimenting with different hinges i cut alot of metal out of the door so next time i do this i will have a better plan. we took alot of the stability out of the door by doing this and we ended up coming back and securing the door jam to the back of the cab. those doors are not light and the door jam didn't have enough strength once we had the door hung. I would be happy to cut out templetes for the hinges we made and send to you but i think these auto loc units are better. they list for over$400 on the autoloc site but i bought mine on ebay for like $160.00. check out these pics of a website i saw were a guy build his own hinges out of 2 x 4 tubing. i will try to find the website and send it to you.

Originally Posted by bagged69chevy

Hey mark, I think the hinges that you first purchased were the Electric Life billet hinges. (correct me if im wrong) I was actually considering purchasing those hinges for my truck... Would you consider making me a pair of your hinges too? Let me know.. Thanks!

Nick