SPA Modeler

Oh yeah!

Sweet! I just want to climb right in, pull out a brew and enjoy the game! Looks awful comfy in there!

I assume that TV is satalite? Otherwise it'll need a looooooong extension lead for the cable!

Looking superb Joe!

Man these are so good to see when they near final form with all those customizing details that you put in!

Thanks guys.

I hit a snag that I hadn't anticipated concerning the rear door hinge. You see...............this is the available room that I have at the L/H side of the door opening between the opening and the couch:



and this is the OOB molded in door hinge which would normally work great but won't with the addition of that couch. It's not such a big deal at the bottom hinge but you can see that there's not enough room in there for that upper hinge. Yeah.............that aint happenin'



So I broke out my spare kit and robbed the inside door trim panel, removed the molded in OOB hinge and broke out a piece of 1/8" brass rod, adhered it to the door and formed a door hinge rod out of some thick ass wire. Believe me.....this stuff aint gonna bend for nothin'. The idea is that the pivot point is at the door and not the body and now I have all the room I need to open and close the door.

Great fix Joe!

The million dollar question is will the door shut completely with the couch in there? Looking at it, it doesn't seem to be much room for a complete closed position. I'm sure you'll get this to work. Soldier on my friend.....

Thanks Stuart and Tom. Thankfully I've had that part covered for a while now Tom. The door does sit flush with the body.

Brilliant fix Joe! That was a stroke of genius!

I appreciate the encouragement Mark. These days I feel like I need it. I had the door / hinge all set into the body yesterday. First off , my initial attempt on opening the door was frustrating because I forgot to allow proper spacing from the edge of the door to the door opening on the hinge side so there was interference there. I was able to remove the door and hinge assy and sand the edge of the door to allow for proper opening and closing with no interference. Secondly, once I fixed that and installed the door/ hinge for a second time I ran into the body not sitting down on the frame all the way in the back because.......................... I forgot about how low the hinge was positioned on the door. The hinge made contact with the floor before the body could be set all the way down on the frame. So off comes the hinge again......only this time I created a noticeable vertical crease line on the exterior finish on the rear door. So I ended up separating the interior trim panel from the door skin, removing the door hinge rod from the interior panel and dunking it in brake fluid again. I was able to save the exterior finish on the door skin with wet sanding and polishing...............thankfully.

I cut another door hinge rod to a shorter length and shortened the hinge mount to the frame and will position the door hinge further up on the door panel. Here's an illustration that I modified to show what I did and what needs to be done here:



The short black line is where the floor is making contact with the hinge. I need to position it up well out of the way to allow some room so the lower part of the hinge needs to be where the red line is. A bit of overkill on the higher up position but it'll definitely be out of the way.

I'd like to refer to this as..............backwards progress to remain positive about all this.