Hi all
Here we go, one of the last irksome jobs before my Series 3 rebuild goes back on the road. Amazing how all the awkward stuff gets left until last isn't it? I know door tops aren't necessary for the MOT but it's wintertime so balls to that.
The door tops are unknown ones, made from very neatly welded pieces of extruded alloy. Not military ones I'm pretty sure. They were rattling around loose in the boot of the donor car, unpainted. They had studs fitted but they were rusty as hell and needed quite a lot of knocking and swearing to get them out. When they finally came out they seemed to be a two-part arrangement; there was a piece you inserted through the slot in the bottom of the door top, and then you'd hook the top of the stud piece in and locate it around the first piece and the two would lock together ready for mounting. But both these bits were hopelessly rusty, not only beyond use but beyond identification too.
The bottom parts of the door tops have two elliptical slots that correspond to the two holes in the door itself. Does anybody know what kind of fastener I should be looking for? I've got my hands on four M10 (or so) bolts that are long and wide enough, and my emergency plan was to shape the heads with an angle grinder so they can be inserted through the elliptical holes in the door tops and turned 45 degrees so they locate enough to be bolted onto the door bottoms. But frankly it's a crap idea.
Does anyone have any more concrete ideas about who might have made these tops, what sort of fasteners they need and where I can get them? I've seen similar posts that recommend using rivnuts but the elliptical holes in the door tops mean this won't be possible.
Hope someone can help!
Here we go, one of the last irksome jobs before my Series 3 rebuild goes back on the road. Amazing how all the awkward stuff gets left until last isn't it? I know door tops aren't necessary for the MOT but it's wintertime so balls to that.
The door tops are unknown ones, made from very neatly welded pieces of extruded alloy. Not military ones I'm pretty sure. They were rattling around loose in the boot of the donor car, unpainted. They had studs fitted but they were rusty as hell and needed quite a lot of knocking and swearing to get them out. When they finally came out they seemed to be a two-part arrangement; there was a piece you inserted through the slot in the bottom of the door top, and then you'd hook the top of the stud piece in and locate it around the first piece and the two would lock together ready for mounting. But both these bits were hopelessly rusty, not only beyond use but beyond identification too.
The bottom parts of the door tops have two elliptical slots that correspond to the two holes in the door itself. Does anybody know what kind of fastener I should be looking for? I've got my hands on four M10 (or so) bolts that are long and wide enough, and my emergency plan was to shape the heads with an angle grinder so they can be inserted through the elliptical holes in the door tops and turned 45 degrees so they locate enough to be bolted onto the door bottoms. But frankly it's a crap idea.
Does anyone have any more concrete ideas about who might have made these tops, what sort of fasteners they need and where I can get them? I've seen similar posts that recommend using rivnuts but the elliptical holes in the door tops mean this won't be possible.
Hope someone can help!
