[doc] Door strut pivot failure (a bit long, but worth checking yours!! )

["Phill Wright" <psw@xxxxxxxx>]

Hiya ...

well, the generally reliable (disgustingly I'm told) 'Sorbet', 
decided it was time summat broke the other day, and tried to eat me 
in the process :-).
While closing the drivers door there was a very loud crack and the 
door collapsed onto me :(
Immediate thoughts was torsion bar failure, but fortunately it was 
less serious.
What had happened was the lower pivot for the door gas strut had 
sheared off!!
I was very lucky that the strut dropped into the door channel and 
not onto the stainless or some serious damage could have resulted - 
it was close judging by the scrape up the rubber seal right to the 
edge of the stainless.
Main problem in the repair was the bolt had sheared off in the mount 
attached to the car body, this is fixed to the inner skin of the 
fibreglass tub. It was obvious the broken stud wasn't going to be 
removed in situ, so, the mount had to be removed. To get the mount 
out you need to dremel out the shape of the bracket from the outer 
skin (its hidden under the door seal so can't be seen after anyway) 
and take the mount off the car. This done the broken stud was still 
unremoveable and I opted to grind off the welded on fixing nut and 
fit a new one - this involved turning a shoulder on a 10mm nut and 
brazing it into the plate.
The mounting plate is no longer available at Houston (though shown 
as available at just over $3 ). 
The actual pivots are available at about £5.00 a pair! so, perhaps 
it would be worth investing in a pair to save you having the same 
problem - they are 25yrs old now and take a lot of sideways stress.
I've taken a few pics of the repair - 3 are linked here, note the 
long temporary bolts - these are used to stop the backplate that the 
two fixing bolts go into from dissappearing in between the skins, 
never to be seen again!
Pic of the sheared off pivot ...
http://www.fab1.net/sorbet/strutfail/broken-stud.jpg
Pic of repaired mount plate ...
http://www.fab1.net/sorbet/strutfail/repaired-plate.jpg
Pic of the door frame with the dremelled out shape and plate 
removed - note the long retaining bolts to allow the plate to be 
slid out the hole while keeping the backplate in place! ..
http://www.fab1.net/sorbet/strutfail/removed.jpg

PhillW
DOC233
VIN 6772 (de-cat'ed and sounding lovely)
AVI and SERA







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