Drilling new screw holes and re-handing TC doors

[Lynwood Smith]

I am a new owner of a 1948 TC. The doors did not close well. I removed them to examine the condition of the wood where each hinge attaches to the doors and vertical uprights on the Tub body. The hinge screws on each door were secure. The holes on the vertical Tub uprights were a different matter. They were a horrible mess. Each had been wallowed out by a previous owner's sloppy repair work. Consequently, I drilled out each hole and glued in Oak dowels. Now, I must rehang the doors. Before doing so, however, I thought it would be wise to ask whether any member can provide some tips on how to do that in a manner that will insure proper alignment of the hinges, and, ultimately, better closure of the doors?

Lynwood Smith
Huntsville, Alabama

[stephen stierman]

One could write a book about this subject. I built and skinned a new tub for TC2911 a few years ago when I did the restoration so had plenty of experience fitting doors. Firstly I used thru screws with nuts and washers instead of wood screws. The rear edge of the door is supposed to sit slightly up from the relief in the elbow rail and you should have a bit of a gap here, if you don't, chassis flexing will knock the paint off the edge of the door or the elbow rail panel. The door should swing up high enough so it does not contact the sill plate when opening and closing, you can use home made shims under the hinge plates to angle the door up at the front. Make sure you have the two rubber bumpers in place at the front edge of the doors. The hinges themselves should be tight with lower nuts locked down and little play when trying to lift the door. The front edge of the door should follow the contour of the front panel, they should be nicely parallel and this is achieved by moving the hinges in or out slightly prior to drilling holes for mounting screws. The holes can be a bit larger than the bolts to allow for some movement in or out of the door prior to locking things down. The latches can be shimmed in our out to allow for correct locking of the mechanism and again shims may need to be used. Doors should NOT fly open when going around corners or hitting bumps, as this tends to make wives nervous. Anything is fair when fitting doors.........
Best of luck, Steve

[Rick Waters]

As a new TC owner, you may not have read, or have a copy, of Mike Sherrell's excellent book TCs Forever. He does deal with door fitting, and all sorts of other TC topics in this book, and I recommend that you obtain a copy, if you do not already have one. My TC doors do not FLY OPEN, and they appear to fit the apertures in the tub fairly well, but then again, the tub has never been disassembled, so I can't take credit for that, and have no magic tips to offer.