Thread: Project Sebring GT Spyder

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Thanks, Dave. I'm really glad my experienced peers are liking this.

The final job on the doors wasn’t a repair. It was a custom modification. I have never liked the Chevette door handles on these cars. They look too bulky and stick out, visually, to me. The original Healey handles were thinner. I decided early on in the build that I would rather shave the handles and go with an electric actuator. The main issue was access to the inside of the door to glass over the backside. After some thought, I came up with what I think is a far easier solution than trying to lay glass through a small hole in the inner door. This is the handle and lock recess.



I started the shaving job by making a couple of fiberglass patches. I spread aluminum foil over the section of the door just forward of the handle opening and taped it down smooth. The door skin has a fairly heavy curve in this area and I wanted my patches to start out more or less curved. Then I laid glass over the foil to form a large patch. The glass naturally took on the curve of the door.



Next, I sawed out and ground a couple of filler plates to fit the handle openings. I also used a hole saw to cut a couple of plugs for the old key holes out of the scrap form the handle plates.





I used a carbide burr on in a die grinder to remove the gel coat in the handle and key recesses to get back to the fiberglass. You don’t want to bond anything to gel coat. Sorry, this picture is reversed form the rest in this post because I forgot to take a picture of the side I was working on at the time.



Using the Fusor T21 epoxy I glued the patches in and let the epoxy set up overnight.



Then, I ground everything down to the base fiberglass and cut out some heavy mat. This was glassed over the patches and tied into the door skin. I made sure to grind the new glass down below the surface of the existing gel coat.









A new layer of gel coat was next. It’s not too pretty, but that wasn’t my goal. I just wanted a consistent gel coat surface to lay filler on. The black color is sandable primer I use as a guide coat.





Next came some fiberglass filler and polyester glazing putty.









I couldn’t resist hitting it with some primer just to see what it will look like. I’m satisfied with it. I hope it holds up and doesn’t cause printing issues with the paint.



Oh, just in case you’re curious about how I intend to open the doors. I plan to use the car with top down most of the time, or with the top up and no side curtains. I have installed inner door handles intended for street rods near the top front of the inner door. These can be reached easily from the inside or outside. They are mechanical handles since I don’t want to rely on electric latches for exit in case of an emergency. For times when the top is up (or the hard top is on) and the side curtains are installed, I plan to hide a small button on the bottom of the “bullet” style door mirrors to actuate the electric door release. This is my tribute to the TVR, another British sports car. Many TVR’s use a button under the mirror to open the door.

As to security, there is not much real security in a car with a cloth top held on with snaps, but I plan to have a limited range RFID interrupter on the main power relay in the car. The RFID key fob will be in my pocket and when I walk away, the power to the whole car, including the doors, will be dead. Of course, there will be another way to access, but you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t tell all my secrets.