mydatsunroadster.com

I spent the morning building some braces to hold the door-gaps to prevent the body from twisting or wracking when I remove it from the frame. Originally I had bought 3' lengths of 1/2" pipe, but the door opening is about 37 1/2" wide, so I needed a bit more length.

So I made another trip to Home Depot and bought three 12" lengths of cast iron 1/2" pipe and a pair of couplings (for each side). For the ends I bought two floor joints, which are essentially small discs that mount onto the end of the pipe. The theory of using shorter lenghts of pipe with the couplings was that I could adjust how tight the pipe was screwed into the couplings, and thus control the overall length of the whole assembly. I chose one standard coupling and one t-joint coupling, because it was about an inch longer than the standard ones. Upon assembling the pieces for the first brace, I realized that, even after I tightened down the pipes into the couplings and end-pieces, the brace was too long; around 39". So in order to reduce the length of the brace I had to tighten the pipes further into the couplings. I screwed the end bracket (disc) into a scrap of 2x6 and used a mallet to pound on a length of pipe fed into the t-joint in order to get it tighter. Eventually I screwed the other end disc into a longer 2x4 and stood on the bottom 2x6 while I spun the top 2x4 to get enough leverage to tighten it to the point where the brace was about 37 1/2" long. I also put some dish soap on all of the threads to lubricate them. If I did this again I would use a 24" length of pipe plus a 12" length and only one coupling. I then removed the door latch catch, which is held in place by three philips head bolts on the rear jamb. I fit the braces in place spanning from the recess for the door hinges and the area where the catch goes. The braces are held in place by the force they push outwards; no bolts or welds. In general the braces work pretty well. They are like reverse pipe clamps where the force is exerted outward from the ends of the pipe when you twist the pipes off the couplings.