Fitting Doors! It's as easy as that!!!!!

[Frosty]

I just had to post this comment for anyone like me who was dreading the time when the dreaded Pilgrim Doors had to be fitted.

I have been putting this job off for as long as possible by finding other jobs to do around the car. I have read all the articles on this forum, watched the video and got myself into a right old tither over how painful and time consuming this job was going to be.

Having run out of jobs to do on the car and now waiting for Pilgrim to deliver the trim etc. I could not put it off any more.

I started on Friday am and had finished the job by Saturday pm. I was overjoyed at how easy it was, with very little hassle and with the passenger door being fitted in under 3 hours.

I found 3 things that made the job so very easy, and I know most of you know these already, but I want to impart these to all the other builders who have not yet fitted those doors.

1. Do not secure your sills until you have fitted the doors. This gives you the opportunity to align the sills to the bottom of the doors and not the other way round. As Tony at Pligrim says "The hinge is metal and will not bend the door is solid and will not bend the only thing that will move is the sills.

2. Use a lot of Blue Tack!!!!!! I had noticed on another message on this forum the mention of Blue Tack. I did not take much notice until I started to fit the doors and realised that they needed to be held in position and having only two hands this was difficult. Big lumps of Blue Tack put evenly around the door and then the door pushed into position onto the body held the door firmly in place. This enabled me to move the hinge into alignment, fit spacer washers as needed and tighten all the bolts with the door fixed in the position I wanted. I concentrated mostly on the top and side alignment and didn't worry to much about the bottom, as this would be sorted with the sills being moved.

3. Use Coach Bolts on the hinge part that connects to the body. Coach Bolts have rounded heads but also a squared off shaft for the first 5mm of its length. This fits perfectly into the extend holes on the hinge and therefore allows you to tighten the nut without the near impossible task of getting a spanner in behind the body work.

Saying all this I have decided to refit the drivers door because i'm not totally happy with the alignment, but this jod holds no fear for me now and I look forward to an evenings work in the evening sun.

A very happy Pilgrim builder.

[Kevin W]

Coach bolts - wish I;d thought of that, would have saved enormous amounts of frustration and spanner hurling. Thats a top tip!

Kevin