Monday, July 29, 2013

The door

The driver's door on the Viper is a total loss.  Not only is the skin smashed, the inner structure and door jamb are all bent up too and it wouldn't latch properly.  It's not worth the effort to fix. The door panel is in great shape though.  Fortunately, one of the biggest Viper salvage yards in the world is right here in Wisconsin.  Don Scharf Automotive had a door shell and glass for me.  It was even the right color.  The missing hinge cover was in the trunk, and I reinstalled it too once the door was on.

There was another problem with the door, the inner and outer stanchion covers were broken when the door was smashed.

The outer looked fine from outside, but all three of the molded in attachment nuts were broken off, leaving nothing to hold the cover on.  Fortunately, the covers are made from ABS.  ABS is great because it's very easy to repair.  The best glue for ABS is...ABS.  ABS very readily melts in acetone.  What I did was melt some LEGOs(also ABS) in a jar of acetone, effectively making an ABS paste glue.  When the acetone evaporates out, you're left with solid ABS.  I went to the hardware store and got some stainless nuts the right size, ground the paint off the inner surface, then glued the nuts on with my ABS paste. 

The inner cover was cracked and had a piece broken off.  Somebody had tried to repair it once already, and didn't do a very good job so the broken piece didn't fit well.  I first used just acetone to melt the pieces back together.  Then I used some of my ABS paste as a filler to fill in and reinforce the cracks. 



When I get the time, I'll sand, fill, and repaint the cover, you'll never know it was fixed.  For now, it functions the way it should, and most people are so taken with the rest of the car they don't notice it's been repaired anyway.

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