Last Touches on the Cargo Doors

Been Working on the last touches on the cargo doors. All the cargo doors have shaved door handles which took a lot more engineering then we where expecting. But in the end it was well worth the effort. The power that we needed to power the door solenoids run through these contacts.

It took us a couple of tries to find the right door popper that would work. The small doors we where able to use one, but it took two for the bigger ones.

Here you can see the location of the contacts and the popper in the top of door.

Used Spal 8lb door lock actuators to release the door latch and made the bracket to hold it in place. Again we tried different actuators and this one seamed to be well built and pulled harder then the more expensive one that we tried. 

   

It's a straight pull to engage the the latch which I think helps out a lot on the success of the actuator.

We also made a emergency latch so that if we had any failures we could still get the doors open. We still plan on making the release lever more attractive. 

To some of you observant followers you will notice that we had to change are design on the latching plate that holds the striker. The first one didn't get the pin out far enough to engage the latch.

We used 20lb gas shocks on the small doors and 40lb for the large ones. This is what Chis and I stressed out most of about the making of the doors. How many pounds will it take to open and hold the doors up, where do we place them, and how long of a shock do we need? In the end it all worked out and ended up not being the hardest part of building the doors.

Door gaps are all done and ready for a little fine tuning on the body work side.

The last touch was to add the back panels to the doors.

Hope this works. a little video of one of the doors in action.

Pulled down the 16' panel to give the bottom edge a beveled to match the siding.

We made three passes with the router so that we didn't have to take all the material off at once. This was after the second pass was made.

Getting ready for the last past.

Chris used a piece of tubing for a guide to run the router down the piece of material. It took a very steady hand and some smooth foot work to get a nice even cut on the 16' panel.

This is what it looked like before we started.

The finished part back on the truck.

The part after sanding and a first cut on the polisher.

We are very happy to have this part done and out of the way. The part came out even and consistent in the 16'. Next up will be to start the polishing process on the rest of the panel.