can anyone give me any sugestions on suiciding the doors on a 34 chevy truck. I built my model a by myself but have never suicided doors before. first question is can I use the stock handles on the truck just relocate them??? who is a good company to get hinges and latches from? always open to any good budget beater ideas.
the origional hinges mounted in wood. The wood is all gone. I am going to have to fabricate metal in place of the wood anyway. If I leave everything the way it was i had just as well buy a kit car or a new S-10. I would rather be creative........ booooo!???????? what the hell????
Are you running fenders? On the later Chevy trucks the lower corner of the door will hit the fender if suicide hinged. so you end up having to cut the corner off. Don't use the old latches. use a "safety" latch out of a newer car and there's a company making electric dead bolts or you can make some to doule up on the latches. There's a reason they call them suicide doors. passengers will grab the handle and open the door just as you're making a left turn at 40MPH, the wind will catch it like an air brake and they get yanked out onto the pavement. Make it so at least the passenger door can't be opened from the inside with the car in gear. check out how the hinges work on a '55-59 Chevy truck and look for or make something similar but scaled down to the size you need.
If you want aftermarket hinges check this out: http://www.rockyhinge.com/ Or you could get some from hagan. Theirs are adjustable in three dimensions: http://www.haganstreetrods.com/html/doorhnge.html
DON'T use "Rocky hinge"'s [smallsize] door latches....get bearclaws- take my word on that.......is there no way to make some other exposed type hinges work?
exposed hinges probably would work, it does on a '34 ford. He said his are in bad shape, so I just assumed hidden would be the easiest for him to do.
I sucide my doors on my 31 ford coupe. It was a little more extensive than I planed. I swapped left and right doors and made them fit flush, Model A overlap body at rear. For hinges I had an extra cowl and used the B pillar mounts that where in front and swapped left to right and mounted at rear of door opening. Before welding it up I centered all gaps and welded angle straps on outside of body to door which held everything in place for final weld. I used bear claw latches mini or smallest available purchased through Balls streetrod. I fab a wire cable that hooks to latch and original outside handles using sliding glass pulleys at local hardware store. also using original handles inside directly to bear claw latch. I burned alot of midnight oil doing this but don't give up cause someone else doesnt like it, remember it your hot rod and build to suit you not others!
I used the factory hinges on my 36, just moved them to the back. I had to flatten the door jam on the cab side. I use Rocky's bear claws with the seliond built in. So far so good.
ive only done 1 car befor so i dont no much .but we used i think there 60-62 impala door hinges .because they push out then open but i dont no about on your car though caused we used them on a vw bug