With the plywood armrest shaped to the recess in the custom door card, it had to be mounted.
It is held in place with insert nuts (normally used in furniture) in the arm rest piece - bolted from the underside.
Before drilling those holes through the fibreglass door card though, I spaced the arm rest piece 1.5mm from the edges to allow even spacing for the material that will be used to upholster them.
I will be putting a thin piece of rubber behind the handle trim to stop any squeaking after it's final fitment.
The last task was to add a grab handle. To keep the interior clean look, I decided against having an exposed grab handle and instead used a grab handle insert, as used in a lot of modern cars. I cut and hand shaped an appropriate hole in the plywood insert (in a location where my elbow would not rest).
Before I fabricated a bracket to bolt this grab handle to, I had to upholster the armrest piece to know the final height of the grab handle insert. I glued on some 4.5mm closed cell foam onto the arm rest and covered it with some charcoal coloured suede, using quality spray adhesive (3M Super 77) and staples to hold it in place. Having not done upholstery before, this took me a couple of attempts with the foam & material to get it looking good.
The final task was to make and mount a mounting bracket to the door skin for the bottom of the grab handle insert to screw into. The simple L-shaped bracket is copied from one my other (late model) cars including the "strengthening dent" (whatever it's called?) in the middle of the bend.
It is held in place with insert nuts (normally used in furniture) in the arm rest piece - bolted from the underside.
Before drilling those holes through the fibreglass door card though, I spaced the arm rest piece 1.5mm from the edges to allow even spacing for the material that will be used to upholster them.
To mount the door card onto the door, I used a series of evenly spaced holes around the perimeter of the door card and attached via M4 rivnuts around the inner door skin. For this, I needed to weld on some brackets on the bottom half of the door. I bent up multiple L-shaped brackets and installed some rivnuts in the brackets
To keep the brackets aligned, I bolted them (evenly spaced) to a piece of steel bar...
To keep the brackets aligned, I bolted them (evenly spaced) to a piece of steel bar...
then positioned the steel bar in place on the door and welded the brackets on
To mitigate against any bolts being over-torqued in the rivnuts (and the rivnut loosening and spinning in place) I added a touch of braze to each rivnut.
I also found I had trimmed a few millimetres too much off the edges in some areas whilst cutting down the size of the cards. It was easy to score the surface on the edges and add some fibreglass structure back.
I also found I had trimmed a few millimetres too much off the edges in some areas whilst cutting down the size of the cards. It was easy to score the surface on the edges and add some fibreglass structure back.
The height of the raised section of door card was made specifically to accommodate the factory Mini door opener handle w/ mounting bracket (without the plastic trim) so all I had to do was cut a correctly sized hole in the card.
I will be putting a thin piece of rubber behind the handle trim to stop any squeaking after it's final fitment.
The last task was to add a grab handle. To keep the interior clean look, I decided against having an exposed grab handle and instead used a grab handle insert, as used in a lot of modern cars. I cut and hand shaped an appropriate hole in the plywood insert (in a location where my elbow would not rest).
Before I fabricated a bracket to bolt this grab handle to, I had to upholster the armrest piece to know the final height of the grab handle insert. I glued on some 4.5mm closed cell foam onto the arm rest and covered it with some charcoal coloured suede, using quality spray adhesive (3M Super 77) and staples to hold it in place. Having not done upholstery before, this took me a couple of attempts with the foam & material to get it looking good.
The final task was to make and mount a mounting bracket to the door skin for the bottom of the grab handle insert to screw into. The simple L-shaped bracket is copied from one my other (late model) cars including the "strengthening dent" (whatever it's called?) in the middle of the bend.
I used a speed-nut for mounting the grab handle insert screw
I then had to repeat the entire process for the passenger door. Thanks also to the limited hours outside of my normal job/work that I have to play with, and fibreglassing during winter (waiting for each application to cure overnight), it was slow work. In total these two doors cards and associated work took almost 2.5 months to complete. There is still plenty of detailed work to be done with filling in pinholes, sanding etc on both of the door cards but I'll leave that for another time.
I then had to repeat the entire process for the passenger door. Thanks also to the limited hours outside of my normal job/work that I have to play with, and fibreglassing during winter (waiting for each application to cure overnight), it was slow work. In total these two doors cards and associated work took almost 2.5 months to complete. There is still plenty of detailed work to be done with filling in pinholes, sanding etc on both of the door cards but I'll leave that for another time.
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