leeloo67

I recently bought (and then had to sell) very nice quality bolt on vertical door hinges. To anyone who has not bought these because they are afraid of cutting into their car, etc - fear not. It was easier than installing a cat-back exhaust.

I did most of the work by myself, and just had a friend come over to help with the door positioning whilst tightening the bolts and installing the struts. I used strong tape to keep the door in place during the test fitting and mounting.

It seems to me that the most critical element of the kit was the strut. The ones that came with my kit were, quite simply, amazing.

First, remove the door catch and fender. You may also want to remove the rocker panel to make things easier (Plus, you can clean them up and paint them while they are off the car. To remove it, take the plastic screws out and then slide the entire panel towards the front of the car about one inch - do not pull on the rocker panel.)

Either tape the door in place or have someone hold it in place.



Remove the stock hinges and prepare the mounting surface. The mounting surface has to be perfectly flat so the hinge will sit tight against the chassis. Place the hinge "in place" and trace around it with a pencil so you can see the area that needs to be flat. The hinge is sort of heavy and hard to handle, so just use a flat block of wood to guage ithe flatness of the mounting surface. I had to hammer a few bulges and grind a few sloppy welds:





Be sure to test fit the hinge before bolting. Once the surface is flat, just mount up the hinge. I weaved the door side of the hinge underneath the wire harness, to keep it from getting pinched by either the hinge or the door. Regardless, pull the wire harness grommet out of the chassis. Once installed, my harness was run like this:



Before proceeding, make sure you test fit the fender as part of the whole test fit process. Then, make sure all the bolts are tight. I am a torque freak, and I haven't found a spec for these types of kits, so I just used the stock hinge spec of 23 lb-ft.





Have a friend slowly open the door so you can install the strut. During opening, keep an eye on the wire harness! If it starts to stretch you have some more work to do before you can continue. My passenger side wires were about an inch longer than the driver side.

Adjust the door sag and set the horizontal movement screw to the desired opening (with this kit, at maximum, will open about halfway of that of stock). Half of the bump stop is visible in the following picture - it is there to keep the door from going up "too early" and hitting the windshield pillar:



After everything is set, just make sure it is all torqued and adjusted and working properly.





Then, dry install the fenders (just set them in place). Slowly open the door and make a note of if and where the hinge hits the excess metal on the back edge of the fender, if at all. For me, I just set the horizontal screw to the minimum necessary to get past the bump stop. After making sure it clears the fender, set it carefully and tighten the bolts.



Then, reinstall all the rest of the bolts, and just clean off the tape residue with some label remover and hit the streets!

Deemeetree

to a write-up, but damn, vertical doors that don't belong on the actual vehicle are UGLY. But, just my opinion.

Sleepy_Red_hatch

looks pretty good, not my style, a little G-UNIT for my taste but good work anyway. hey why did u have to sell them?

leeloo67

Yes, it may seem like rice to many, but I had a valid reason for attempting this modification. Just about every joint in my body is in pain at least some of the time, and I was hoping that the doors would offer a nice, wide, large opening to ease ingress and egress. While the new opening of the doors was very nice and large, the action of opening and closing them while in the car only added strain.

Maybe I will get motorized rice doors one day...

Falqon

Thanks for the write up, got some friends who will want to to read it. Any Del Sol writeups are in my book!

Everyone knows that opinions are like buttholes, so why in the world people insist on showing theirs off is beyond me. This isn't a ricey or not thread.

Deemeetree

So you got vertical doors for medicinal purposes? What will we think of next...

HATCHingMN

pimp your ride

Sleepy_Red_hatch

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Deemeetree &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">So you got vertical doors for medicinal purposes? What will we think of next...</TD></TR></TABLE>

Vtec to cure cancer?? it IS said to have exhilarating effects on the domestic crowd

vsm_EJ6

I don't think my fatass could fit through that.

But good write up.
Not my style, but definatley a to anyone who actually takes the time to offer information to their peers.

nocturnaldragon

Not to bad, I should really add more of these threads to my del sol pros and cons thread. ITs in my sig now so check it out.

mike93eh

ummkay, thanks for the insider info.

sohcvtec1995

Good write up. Especially cause tommarow there is going to be a thread called " How do I Install Vertical Doors on my Del Sol"

Deemeetree

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Sleepy_Red_hatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Vtec to cure cancer?? it IS said to have exhilarating effects on the domestic crowd</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, I'm sure it does. Those guys sporting blown 500+ cubic inches are shaking when they hear VTEC.

JDM INSPIRED

very good write up...been thinking to do that to my delsol...

leeloo67

I probably should have included in my post the reason for making the post. I scoured the interenet for weeks and I couldn't find any site that had a personal writeup on vertical doors.

My instructions can apply to other Hondas of this era, not just Del Sols. Also, anyone looking for a bit more detail than just people flaming ricers asking questions about vertical doors has just found it.

Nocturnaldragon, that is a very good pros and cons list there. You could probably add that some Sols are a bit underpowered and have rear drum brakes (that will lock in a heartbeat with the 13 wheel/tire combo), and a related pro could be that the base engine is possibly the easist engine to work on, ever, and is indestructable.

litterbox

Great job! How much did that kit cost?

The only vertical doors imo that are cool are the ones off the Koenigsegg CC:

JDM-EJ1

Good write up, but not my style.