I was thinking about doing a sliding door conversion on my 99 z24. I don't know much about auto body work though, so I need a little advice. My first idea is to just cut some 80/20 with linear bearings to conform horizontally to the sides of the car (and make it look good somehow). The bearing slide will obviously need to be preloaded to compensate for the lateral roll... maybe two separate slides at the worst case. I checked out the insides of the doors and there seems to be enough beef to mount a shuttle assembly in the centerline. I need to know what there is for frame support under the side body panels though. Can anyone describe this or show me a drawing of the frame under the outer panels?
Thanks
- Ken
'99 Z24, Manual
My suggestion .........don't do it........on a unibody there really is no frame, the outer panels and inner panels are what hold the vehicle together. Spot welded together to form one unit. No frame inside.
coolfire
use van hinges/units and make them slide forward to the fender. you wont have to bother with relocating your latch and there is enough of a frame in the engine bay to support your door. i would love to do this to a cav. this is what ive thought ^^^ about
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Okay so since there is no frame under the rear body panels I guess that makes my idea impossible without rebuilding most of the car
As for your idea Tabasco... yeah it is mechanically better to slide the doors forward as you suggest, but it's gonna look ugly and extremely hard to blend in. Not only is there barely enough room to fit the whole door in the fender section... it will look horrid when opened as the entire top of the inside of the door from the armrest up will be exposed. Also, the front section of the car has more curve to it, meaning a linear slide will have to stick out a lot at the front of the car. A curved slide is just way too expensive and will take so much longer to design.
- Ken
'99 Z24, Manual
