February 20, 2021 RPO Update:
By Frank Lyman and Chuck Painter
Good news! We finally conquered the last door. As a background, the two forward sliding doors were so decayed that we ended up having new ones manufactured. We salvaged the hardware. The glass was from another car. That glass is in storage. We replaced the glass with automotive grade shatterproof cut to the correct dimensions.
Just an aside, we are using the term forward doors given that the lavatory is located at the other end of the car and we assume you would want to have that downwind.
Assembly of the new doors was very straight forward. We had the mullions welded in and mounted the new glass without a hitch. We then used the old doors as templates to mount the hardware. We sandblasted and repainted the hardware prior to installation.
The door we dubbed left forward went in without too much of a fight. There is little binding that we will deal with later.
Right front was whole different story. When in position, we could not get the left carrier to fit. Upon further inspection, we determined that the track was bent. Time for major surgery. We took the cover off the door pocket and muscled it out of the way. The car had been in an accident and the wall was warped. We shimmed up the track and rehung the door.
It still fought back. There was a considerable amount of rust that had pushed out frame around the door pocket. We used a rail spike as a chisel and pounded it back into shape. We had to do the same with the door sill. After a four hour struggle, the door moves and locks correctly.
Our next step is reinstalling the door pocket.
