The Doors
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UPDATE: 05/28/2017 - These extensions trying to get more leverage on the bear claw latch still is not sufficient to open the doors due to the force required to trip the latch, ORIGINAL POST: This is a partial solution to the problem with THESE bear claw door latches. They simply don't work without more leverage on the unlock lever. Silicon umbrella on the solenoid to keep crap out of the plunger. I also added another 12 gauge electrical wire in parallel to the solenoid from the controller because I was only getting 8.5 volts when the solenoid was energized. That brought the voltage up to about 9.8 volts. I SHOULD add another 12 ga. wire from the "Hot" to the controller to get the voltage drop at a minimum, but after this, since it works, I'll leave it at that... This worked until I added the windlass around the perimeter of the door (trim strip on the inside), then getting the door open required bumping with one's hip at the same time hitting the unlock button on the remote control. GRRR
UPDATE #2: February 2021: After the following description and update of the bicycle cable solution, here is the latest. After a couple of years, the windlass and the gaskets have finally "conformed" and are not holding the latch from opening the door. So they open every time with the remote fob and solenoid. HOWEVER, it occurred to me that if I adjusted the bicycle cable so that it tripped the bear claw latch BEFORE the electric tab/switch energized the solenoid, it would save wear and tear on the system when I'm opening the door from the inside. Finally works like a factory setup ! ....... ......HERE IS THE FIX ! 05/28/2017 - - The other night while trying to get to sleep, it occurred to me that I could add a bicycle brake cable assembly so that the driver's side door could be opened from the inside when it is securely closed, as the solenoids are not strong enough to unlatch the doors with the pressure from the gaskets and the rather stiff windlass around the perimeter of the inside of the doors. So I added the little bracket to the lever arm of the door handle, secured one end of the cable sheath next to it, drilled a hole next to that, and ran the other end to the bottom rear of the door. See the next picture.
The other end of the bicycle brake cable is secured inside the door and the cable is looped up through a hole in the unlatch mechanism and secured with the brass cable clamp. WORKS GREAT ! I could not slam the door securely before or I could not get out of the car, since the solenoid unlatcher (with the silicon cap on it and steel rod) does not have enough power/force to open the door. The other cable in the foreground is the one that goes to the grill area so if I have a dead battery or the solenoid dies I can open the door with a yank from the cable at the front of the car.
Prepping for the "single glass" windows. Part of the top of the door is cut away, and welded a 1/8" thick plate to the cut out section, drilled and tapped, to mount the front guide rail for the window. Fabricated a temporary bracket to hold in position to weld to the door. Magnets wouldn't work, nor would clamps. As it turns out, this thing did not work to hold the plate in place, so I made another clamp - see the next picture.
This one worked. The angle is slightly off but after welding, bent the plate toward the front so it is vertical. TIP: When welding a thicker (1/8") piece to a thinner (20 ga.) get the torch out and heat the thicker part up to red hot, then the weld will take a lot better than if you don't do that.
UPDATE 10/19/2021 - This AUTOLOC OPERATOR FAILED !.. the push-pull cable got stretched out and the window would not go up the last inch when trying to roll it up. You may ignore all these modifications that I did to make them work in the first place..go to Page 3 where I update the update using Ball's electric operator.....Chop off 5-1/2" of the Autoloc 9848 operator.
To separate the motor/gearbox from the track, cut on the solid line ONLY through the outer part of the rail, then cut the tube on the dotted line. That will give you about an inch on each side to reclamp the cut off section of the tube so that the motor can be mounted so that it doesn't come in contact with the outer skin of the door.
Looking down on the end of the operator. The self tapping screw is an emergency stop. Between that screw and the "riser tube" on the left is the bolt securing the uppermost nut that mounts the upper end of the track. I decided to cut that bolt down by 1/4" to be sure it would never contact the carrier that clamps to the glass at the bottom when it comes up. Notice how thick the rail material is.
If you choose to use the Autoloc 9848 kit, mount the upper bolt/nut at 4-3/8" from the top of the frame, it will come out perfect.(Side note: I paid $151 for the two operators, and after I gave the seller a two star review, he now has the same package on Amazon for $111. The kit is obviously a Chinese product, but where the hell can you get anything American made at that price. Most other kits are in the range of $300 these days.) Also, in conflict with some instructions you may have seen, DO NOT mount the track at 1/2 the dimension of the length of the window. It should be mounted on the centerline of the CENTER OF GRAVITY. You can get the center of gravity by balancing the glass on a soft pivot. This happened to turn out to be 16-1/2" from the rear of the glass. Then there are no forces on the glass to tip to the rear or to the front. It will be balanced on the track. That mounting hole is 18-1/8" from the back edge of the door.
Tha Autoloc 9848 has a permanently mounted motor/gearbox on the bottom of the track, but it WILL NOT fit in the door that way. The motor hits the door before you can get the track at the correct angle. I had no choice but to cut 7" out of the "pusher/puller" tube and graft it onto the track. You can slice off part of the track and give you about an inch to clamp the tube back on.
Another fabricated bracket (ok, not so pretty) made out of a piece of 20 gauge scrap. Had to do some trial and error bending to get it to work out. The bracket is to hold the motor mount steady. However, if there is much of an offset angle, about 45 degrees or more, the tube will tend to pull off the motor bracket, no matter how tight the clamp is, so will be fabricating another bracket to hold it in.
The guts of the door are nearly complete !! Now it's time to start on the passenger side door. And regardless of what anybody says, this Autoloc 9848 is very well made, not flimsy, and has the very same glass clamps as operators costing twice as much. That hole in the center of the picture is to access and tighten the front glass clamp nut with a 3/8" drive extension and socket. I glued some plastic sheeting on top of the matting to keep it dry after this picture.
Made a bracket with a "hook" on the back side to hold the blue guide tube in place. The motors are rather "high torque", and pushed the clamps loose if the switch isn't released immediately when they reach the end of the travel. This works. (UPDATE: This failed - scroll down to find out what I did wrong and how I fixed it a year later)
VIDEO - Wired in temporarily, That little "jerk" near the end of the video is the video, not the window operation. The operator I bought was Autoloc, and I've taken a lot of heat for buying it from some folks, but the thing, though Chinese made, is very well made, very strong, with no deficiencies in design that I have found. The error I made was that I bought the operator which has the motor mounted to the rail, permanently, and the damned thing would not fit, as the motor hit the outside of the door and I could not line up the rail to the glass. So I had to drag out my Dremel again and cut the motor lose from the rail, cut and reattach 7" of the blue tube between the rail and the motor, and it all worked out perfectly... Happy boy today. 11/3/2015
VIDEO - (Got the one piece glass from "street rod glass" in Riverside, CA) Power window - temporary wiring, motor not mounted yet, just HAD to see if it worked ! And it does.........A little "rattely" because still some lose parts in the door...and also the curved tube on the bottom causes some noise when the push/pull flex rod runs past the ends of the metal sleeve internals.
UPDATE #2: Autoloc operators are SHIT! SEE THE NEXT PAGE FOR REPLACEMENT OF THIS CRAP. UPDATE #1: (6/2/2018) Well, lesson learned... ALWAYS make your modifications bulletproof. I didn't do that. The window motor push/pull flex cable was secured to the nipples on the motor and the window mechanism with clamps. After some use (a year or so), one of the clamps let loose and the driver's side door window flopped down. Sooooo.. time to make it bullet proof with regard to "falling off"...That electric window motor is pretty dang strong..
Drilled a hole through the flex tube and through the nipple on the window slide bracket, cut a small screw down to about 3/16" length, screwed it into the nipple (if too long it would hit the push/pull cable), and clamped over the screw head.
Drilled a hole through the flex tube and through the nipple on the motor, cut a small screw down to about 3/16" length, screwed it into the nipple (if too long it would hit the push/pull cable), and clamped over the screw head.
Spring tube between the door jamb and the door. The door jam end of the sleeve is secured by drilling out the sleeve so that the set screw goes through it and clamps onto the spring, but the door side is allowed to slide in it's sleeve. The sleeve is located 8" below the bottom of the upper hinge. That will assure that it will not interfere with the window or rail inside the door.
Since I had sound deadening on the inside of the door, and my thumb just isn't strong enough to do all bending, the sound deadening material provided a steady pivot point to push the fuzzy into shape. I used the plastic handle of small pliers to press the fuzzy into shape. Still not perfect, but it will have to do.
I thought I would NEVER get this dang "window fuzzy" to bend around that corner. It took a rubber mallet and a small wooden pusher carved into a curved shape to push it up into the crevice - Start here, screw the corner into the door, and work your way toward the front and then down the back side of the door.
It's always SOMETHING! The 1/4 inch door panels plus the padded covering makes the door opening mechanism stud too short to install the handles. So it's time to fabricate a couple of door handle extensions. And if you can believe it, the new door handles say "Made in USA". Nearly seems weird....
Had to fabricate an extension for the door handle, as the door panel is a lot thicker than stock.
Front driver's side window trim, fuzzies, and glass in.......The damned door, however, does not line up correctly. Notice the gap at the top of the door. When I tried adding a shim on the bottom hinge to raise the rear of the door (rotate it counter-clockwise slightly), the bottom rear of the door then hit on the jamb at the bottom. Additionally, when I mounted the front fender (see pictures in painting the car gallery), and adjusting the fender all the way back where it should be, the door gap to the fender is over 1/4". So now it's obvious that the problem rests in the fact that the new chinese hinges I got from a certain shoebox vendor has a rather loose manufacturing dimensional tolerance with respect to real Ford hinges. They are too thick, (particularly the top hinge - with no shims installed) outside face to outside face, making the door position to be too far back toward the rear of the car. I'm going to have to remove the door/hinges and have them machined down to position the door and fender gap correctly. Burns my BUTT.
