Saturday, Nov 20, 2004 at 20:46
G'day Bonz,
I haven't got any photos at present, will see what i can do with this new fangled digi camera i've got. Mind you, it's a VERY basic "table". You might be better off getting a professional one from the member on this site who makes them (not sure of his name, but pretty sure his "EO NAME" incorporates his little business. Anyway, if you remove the large plastic trim just below the glass on the larger door (there are 2 plastic plugs you need to remove to do so) and then remove the whole plastic/vynle trim carefully (the small white lugs tend to break easily). That will expose the workings of the inner door, after you also peel off the clear plastic liner....caution, doing this may allow allow dust to ingress, but doesn't appear to be of any noticeable volume as far as I'm concerned.
Using the 2 upper holes, I put an occy strap across the top. This is used to retain the table in the upright position. Using the holes that are exposed along the bottom of the door once you remove the main trim section, I bolted 3 x 3" hinges in place and secured the table (just a piece of partical board) to them. Once folded up, I used a lug on the underside of the table onto which I clip the occy strap.
To hold the table at it's horizontal position, I used 2 lengths of plastic covered clothes line. Once again, i used existing holes in the sides of the door which had been the home of the lugs holding on the main trim and then just secured the other end of each piece through a hole drilled through the table. You could use chain for this too, but it might rattle around.
On the small door i did a home made (bodgy) job too. If you can weld you would be better off doing it the way my mate (Member: Gerk) did his....but I'll explain that later.
With
mine, I undid the bolt that holds the bracket to the body work. I took another 3" hinge and knocked the pin out of it. One half has what i will call 3 lugs through which the pin went...the other half has only 2 of theses lugs. I used the half that had only 2 lugs. I used a countersunk 3/16 bolt and attached it to the bracket so that the 2 lugs are facing rearwards closest to the door. The head of the bolt goes through the hinge and ends up sitting hard up against the bodywork near where the original bolt was located. A nut holds the 2 parts together and ends up being in the same spot on the bracket as the original bolt head was. Any excess length of bolt can be cot off...hence the bolt is only about half an inch long.
Now it's just a matter of holding the door as far open as you can without the black plastic cover (which goes above the number plate light) hitting the rear body work above the tail light. Once you have the position sorted out, I used 2 tech screws through the other 2 holes in the half hinge to hold it in place. Note the door only opens a fraction more than standard, but it helps a helluva lot. The location of the counter-sunk bolt is only about 1/2" or less from where the original bolt was.
Now, as for Gerk's idea.....much more professional looking..... He removed the small bracket all together by taking the bolt out (same as I did), but then also removing the hinging pin that holds that small bracket to the strut. He then took the small bracket to his work bench, cut off the the half section of the hole that the bolt had gone through, welded on another piece of steel to give himself more "meat" and then drilled a hole the same size as the original bolt's hole, but about 8mm further away than the original...Same result, neater finish. My tech screws may end up working loose with wear, but I still have the original captive nut there to re-use if need be. In the meantime, I try not to fling the small door open with any significant amount of force that might accelerate the wear factor of the tech screws.
Hope I haven't been too long-winded in my explanation.
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