Dino Saga 070218 _ Left Door Hinge Area & Extra Dino Duty

Dino Saga 070218 _ Left Door Hinge Area & Extra Dino Duty

When I got to the driver’s side, things were worse. Lots more overspray, remains of door seals, broken screws. Oh well, needed a subject for this weeks Saga. Cleaned up cover plate, sanded the back and hit with flat black epoxy. Broke off the lower screw getting the plate off and found that it was the second broken screw in that location. The screws were the standard sheet metal screws and had rusted. Running that kind of screw into the ¼” thick hinge was a bad idea. Decided to change all 4 screws holding the panels to the hinges. I have been slowly changing sheet metal fasteners over to US standard stainless. Drilled out old holes in hinges to #36 and tapped them 6-32 through. Opened up the holes in the plates to #27 and got some 6-32 x 3/8” long Philips pan head stainless screws. No more rust or binding of sheet metal screws way over their self tapping capabilities. The sheet metal screws at the top of the panels were a little rusty but threads were fine. They go into sheet metal. Just went to new #4 stainless screws there. Nice to have Specialty Tool and Bolt a couple of miles away. They have 40,000+ different fasteners in stock and can hit most any requirement. Also have taps, dies, tools, etc. Will sell 1 or 1,000 of whatever you want. Good prices too.

Primer didn’t want to come off. Just painted over it with flat black. I brush on craft paint thinned with Floetrol. Used soft camel’s hair brush. Dries flat with no brush marks. Pulled window/light connector apart and sprayed everything with WD-40. Put WD-40 on door switches and their push-on contacts. Lights all work fine now. Put a little 30 weight oil on door hinges and put everything back together. Looks more better.

Have been working on various pieces of golf course equipment lately. Greens mowers, fairway mowers, sprayers, hole punching machines for aerating greens and tees. And carts, both electric and gas. Fun to play with simple things. Most problems arise from all the accessories that the US Government and the State of California mandate for safety and pollution reasons. There can be 3 to 5 safety switches in addition to a key switch that have to be on before you can start an engine. Selection and mounting of these are left to anyone but the engineers who designed the machines. Amazing how many ways there are to foul up a safety switch or shut-off valve. Then operators remove, jump or jam these things. Lot to be said for training operators and then let them suffer the consequences of stupidity. Fools will always be able to defeat a fool-proof system and will suffer the consequences anyway. Gasoline engine pollution was cured when cat converters went on cars in the seventies. Playing mickey-mouse games trying to stop small engine pollution is nothing more than regulators having nothing better to do now that problem is gone.

Had a fairway mower stuck out on the course. Towed it almost to the clubhouse with a cart and a rope. Final hill was just too much for the cart so the Dino was called to the rescue. Tied a long rope to my nice, shiny, newly plated rear bumper. Put Dino in first and slipped the clutch. Mower came up just fine. After digging a little found that a microswitch on the clutch, one of two, had fallen off. Shorted out ignition no matter where the clutch was. Another day of fun in Santa Barbara.

John
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Champtc,
Never knew that cover plates were not fitted. My GT is 1972 #04504 and has the plates. Looks like you have the same overspray I had. Plates are 0.025" steel. Stiffening flanges were formed along angled top edge and on outboard edge above, between and below hinges. Bottom of plate goes 1/4" below stainless rain gutter under doors. Plates are held on with two screws into the center of the hinges and one screw at the top going in just below the stainless strip on the inside of the windshield pillar. Plates and interior of sills were painted same color as body. Pictures show my finished results. Only reason you can see the flat black is because of the flash. Normally the area in front of plates is in deep shadow. If I were to make new plates, I would make a curved top that just left enough room for weather strip to pass over. Don't need the stiffness of the flange and surely dont need the resulting straight line. Hope this helps.

John
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Synchro,
Never figured out function of second switch. Just keep putting it back after cleaning. One switch does door lights and cabin light. The other ??? Pray tell us.
John

 

Thanks. My second switch was wired into an Ungo Box when I bought the car. Any buzzer was long gone. I removed the box and all the millions of wires that went to switches and alarms all over the car. Switch wire was obviously original so left it. Now I know. Hate buzzers. would have pulled it immediately myself. Original owner was right on.

John