Suicide Doors for Kaiser

The suicide door hinges arrived from Electric-life and after several unsuccessful tries at mocking up the rear doors on the car I decided to just cut it and get it over with.


An opening in the rear of the door frame where the latch use to be was cut. When the new hinge was tried in the hole it hit the inside of the wheel well, that also had to be cut.

The mounting plate was trimmed down and fit into the opening then leveled vertically, and horizontally (be sure to set the car up level on stands before starting) and clamped into place. I made templates for the support plates that fit to the door frame on one side and to the inner fender support on the other side, cut and fitted support plates the tack welded it all in place. The hinge was bolted into place keeping it centered in the mounting holes to allow maximum adjustment and double checked that the hinge arm was level in both open and closed position.


A hole was cut in the end of the door then slide the hinge over and into the door opening. With the door & hinge in the permanent position the support plate supplied with the kit was tried in several positions until the most accessible for welding and that gave the most support was found. The trimmed down and bolted to the hinge arm.

Before welding anything I put the glass channel back in the door where it hit the hinge arm and support plate. After more trimming and fitting for clearance of the glass channel, the support plate was tack welded on.

I supported the door and opened it with everything just tack welded and found that it would only open about 75% before hitting the side of the car and the rear vent window point on the rear of the door hit and scrapped on the car when opening and closing.


The directions said to put the hinge pin as close to the outside of the car as possible and I found that I could move the hinge about 3/4" before it hit the inside of the rear fender. After welding the hinge mounting plate and support into place permanently I welded up the bolt holes and drilled and tapped new ones 3/4" to the outside of the car. Also had to cut the mounting plate using a cut off wheel and sawzall.

I re-installed the hinge and door and tried opening it again. The door opened to 90 degree but the vent window point still scrapped. I could not move the hinge any further so to solve this problem I cut off an Inch of the door point and welded it to the body retaining the same line and shape of the door point at the vent window.

After the other door hinge is installed I will tackle the door latches.

MORE LATER ----