One challenge that is taking a while is removing the door handle and the window frame. The door handle mechanism unbolted very easily but refused to exit the door. Much head-scratching ensued before having to give in and ask an ‘idiot question’ on the SS part of Jag-Lovers Forum who kindly advised that the door handle is fixed to the external chrome trim strip that runs the width of the door.
‘Be careful’ they advised, ‘the trim strip is made of brass and the fixings are made of steel with no corrosion protection so undoing the nuts from the studs is likely to be tricky’. Well, that was an understatement, all the studs had rusted into blobs of metal and needed to be cut off. The problem is these fixings are inside the door within narrow box panels. There is very little room to wield tools let alone a cutting tool. Many hours later and using a Dremel with a small worn-down cutting disc – I had removed the 6 studs and the trim (with the door handle) came loose. I am pleased to advise that the trim strip was undamaged by this process and the handle is simple to remove.
Clearly I need to remake all the fixing studs but that is fairly simple to do on the lathe. Not shown in the picture below is filing a couple of flats to the round screw end so that it can slide within the channel but not rotate.
That will work… I just need to make 6 of these for each door but that is a job for another day. The boring bit is now removing the strip from the other 3 doors…
WINDOW FRAME
The door window frame is my next challenge – again all the fixings are rusted and I suspect they will need to be drilled out – I have not made much progress on this yet but I do know that something is not well in the quarter light mechanism – I have to rotate the handle 3 times before the frame moves – i.e. there is a ton of play that is not supposed to be there. Put that on the future job list too.
I love this car; I know it is a serious challenge but it will be an interesting journey.