suicide doors

[sick69]

I know at least a couple of you used hinges from a mid 70s jeep grand wagoneer for your suicide doors.


I've got the hinges and it seems pretty straight forward on how to install them(thanks to a couple articles that where posted in other threads), how ever I have a couple questions,,,,

1 how far from the outter body did you mount the hinge. I measured on the jeep and the pocket was 1.5 inches from the outter skin. should i stay with this or move it slightly out(1/4" - 1/2") for alittle more room when the door is open? good placement of the hinges is my biggest concern with doing this.

2 how did you reinforce your door after you installed the jeep hinges? I was thinking after the jeep hinges were installed about connecting the two mounts inside the door with 1/4 flat stock and running a v with 3/4" dom tubing from the center of the flat stock. one leg to the upper corner under the wing window and the other leg to the lower corner. any other ideas or suggestions?

3 do I need to reinforce the cab where the new hinges are? I was thinking if I need to , of using a 1/4 flat stock backing plate and attaching braces from the flat stock to the rear cab wall? I was kind of thinking about enclosing the corners(from the floor to the lower window edge) anyway with 20ga and mounting speakers in it. that would strengthen the door jamb in itself. maybe use 12 or 16 ga to enclose the corners?



would love to hear any suggestions about useing these hinges and supporting/reinforcing the doors and cab

pics would be great

thanks in advance

Frank

[Rokcrln]

I have not done this yet but here are some pics I save for one day.
Yes I would try and reinforce the doors as much as you can and same with the cab corner. The factory did alot of reinforcing of the doors and if you have a bad door I would sugest you chop it open to see what was done and you might find some things you can copy. As for the corner you will need alot more suport if you want this to be trouble free and last for years. Again I have no pics of what to do here but you want to tie as much of the corner and rear cab into this suport to stop any flex. Have fun with it and keep us posted. Also you did get the hinges off a two door and not a four door right?

Kevin
LFD Inc.

[sick69]

yes they are off of a two door, whats the difference between the two door and four door?


and because I know someone will post it,,,,,,,,,,two doors is the differennce

the two door hinges abit more stought?


thanks for the pics I saved those from a search I did as well. That thread is the reason I went and got the jeep hinges instaed of buying a kit.

thanks for the pics and the advice. after seenin your work rokcrln,,, I wouldn't mind payin you to to do it.do you offer free pick up and delivery in the lower 48?

I want to have the doors swinging backwards by the end of january so i'll keep you posted on how things go. I'll try and get pics of it in the process.

Frank

[Rokcrln]

The two door ones open up a full 90* or almost as were the 4 doors only open like 60*. Were did you get your hinges? I need a set but do not feel like hitting all the yards looking for a slop free set. Does any one know if you can still buy these new from anyone?

I was thinking about it last night or was it this morning (2am ) and the best way to start the B post would be to make a card board templete that fit inside the post tight to the back side where the hinge will bolt to. Then transfer this to a piece of 3/16" or 1/4" plate and weld it to the post. You will be able to tap it for your bolts and then brace off to it for more strength. You can run a plate at floor heigth that ties into the floor and teh bottom of the new post plate then do the same thing up at rear window heigth. This would be a great start for reinforcing this area. Find me a set of hinges and I will send you pics of what else to do Before I forget make sure all your rust work is done and your doors and fender fit perfect before starting this mod or it will be a pain in the arss later!

The pic is my best PAINT work I can do but it shows yellow as the main plate you should add then the Blue is the sopt welds to hold it into place and teh Pink shows were to do your main suporting then add more were you can. Your 16 ga idea for closing off the pillar would work well as added suport but keep in mind what I would do is tap the plate for your hinge bolts then once the door is hung and adjusted were you want it I would back it up with nuts on the back side. Good luck.

Kevin
LFD Inc.

Kevin
LFD Inc.

[shifty]

This quick post may not be helpful, but a member here was working on this about a year ago when I first started heavily using the forum and he had a post in this forum with lots of pictures and info on reinforcing them with latches and whatnot so they don't fly open while driving down the road. I cannot remember who it was? The search feature might be useful in tracking it down (just search for "suicide doors" and look for a post from 8-16 months ago).

[sick69]

the backing plates are exactly what I was talking about. I hadn't thought about the upper and lower plates though.


apparently I got lucky,,, I grabbed the first pair of hinges that were tight. it happened to be a 2door. there may have been one or two other 2 door wangoneers down there,several 4doors and a even a couple trucks. are the truck hinges the same as the 2door or the 4 door? I will go down there this weekend and see if there are any other 2 door wagoneers with good hinges. I might pull a set from a 4 door and see how hard it would be to make them open a little further. because they are stamped steel it shouldn't be to hard to mod them to open a little further.

[robsmistress]

ok frank looks like we got some work in the future to look foward to thanx rokcrin for the info we share the same but slighty different ideas in what we want our trux to look like...
Rob

[robsmistress]

Hey Frank you forgot the B/B blazer in your list of projects

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Nsane68 Is The Guy Who Did The Suicide Doors..

[sick69]

thats the thread I saw those pics from originally. it looks like he's done a pretty clean job on his. I did actually get out into the garage today with the hinges and the cab. the backing plate on the door jamb, the upper and lower plates are very good ideas instead of putting the second plate on the rear wall of the cab im thinking it should go at the back of the hinge for the third bolt and weld to the upper and lowers. along with the the 16ga to enclose the corner should make it pretty strong.

[sick69]

well I got the doors mounted and aligned, door handles, locks and mirror holes filled and smoothed. I will start the rear door jamb probably tomorrow afternoon. get it cut open and smoothed before the hinges go in.

also filled in the gas filler hole while I was in the area.


just a quick update


Frank

[Rokcrln]

Better start posting pic's if you know whats good for ya!!

Kevin
LFD Inc.

[watahyahknow]

those hinges look like they would work well on the hood too , maibe an idea for the lowered framelaying 20+ inch rimtrucks here

[bowtiehotrodder]

cool idea

[sick69]

my digital died. I was gonna try and barrow one and get some pics. i'm gonna have to get some soon because I was thinking about doing a write up with pics.


I ended up removing the passenger door and changing the factory hinges. there was a bit of slop in the ones that were on there and it wouldn't adjust right.
between removing the door and reinstalling it with differant hinges and sanding both doors some more that is about all I got done on it today.
I should be off work early all this week(around 130) so I should be able to get the door jambs cut out and new plates welded back in. before I started the door conversion for what ever reason I had it set in my mind that there wasn't THAT much involved. guess I was wrong! everytime I look at it there is something else to cut out and smooth for it to be as clean as possible. thats part of the fun! guess i'll get back to it tommarrow afternoon.

[sick69]

I suppose if you mounted them in your cowl area you could use them for hood hinges aswell. I don't see why it wouldn't work. personally I like rokcrln's forward flip hood. just my .02 though

would be interesting in seeing it done.

[watahyahknow]

dunno wat it is with you guys and those digicams i have one of the first ever a HP 1 megapixel digital cam its bout 9 years old now eats the power out of 4 penlights rather fast but it has never let me down yet its only slow .... you need to wait for a second to get the pic and another second to load it on the memorycard

[sick69]

I think we have the similar cameras. mine is about 7 years old and acts about how you described. and is also a HP

in my case though I think it was more the fact my kids wouldn't leave it alone than a camera issue. I can still take pics with it but the pics are extremely pixilated and fuzzy. thats how they are viewed on the screen and how they download. the lense apparently gave up the ghost or is sliding in the grave. up until last month it has never given me any problems other than eatting batteries like there is no tomorrow

[watahyahknow]

it just might be a settings thing ......i believe there is a setting for getting the most pics on the memorycard you might want too scroll through the menu first to see if that gives any relieve before getting a new one

[sick69]

i'll give it a shot and see what happens

[sick69]

didn't make a difference at all . its done

[sick69]

well I got a little done today. the passenger door jamb is smoothed and the new hinges are in. thats as far as I got before the truck decided it was time to "bond"!

after getting the hinges in I walked across the inside of the cab to the drivers side.I wanted to double check a measurement. when I tried to come back to the passenger side apparently I felt my head needed to fill the exact space where the rear view mirror was!!!!

the glass and the plastic/rubber trim had already come off and was laying on the dash so what remained was an empty sheet metal shell.

did I mention SHARP sheet metal shell?

as you guessed it,,,,,,, after sitting in the ER for a couple hours getting 13 stitches and a tetanus shot(been about 12 years since the last tetanus shot,,,the last time I needed stitches) I didn't get much else done today.

I did go over to a friends house and got his passenger door on and aligned for him.

I'll get pics up tomorrow night of the progress so far.


Frank

[68GMC454]

glad your alright..man those tetanus shots hurt..i hate them...wel hope you feel better,,and get more done over the holidays...

[watahyahknow]

the last shot for tetanus they put in my upper leg they trew in the needle like it was a dart it felt like they put a big mable between a muscle and a nerve i dreath the day i have to get another one , hope you face will heal up whell .
put some foam and tape over that mirror .

whell you know wat those brai........not so smart kids on skateboards say : pain is good, chicks dig scars

[AesC10s]

Would these hinges work to do suicide doors on a 64-66 and a 75?