suicide doors

[68greezr]

has anyone ever seen/done/this type of mod on a benz?i was out in the garage looking at it ,i think it would look pretty good,and add a little custom look to the ol'beast.

thanks in advance

Factory suicide doors on the 1951 170 VA.

[kpb]

I concur that the look could be ... shocking, but to carry this off I gotta believe you have far more 1) talent, 2) skill, 3) tools, 4) time, and 5) $, than do I

kpb

[68greezr]

well this year it's body and paint ,so i'm going to do the research and see if i can find a hindge kit,i know someone out there makes it.i'll post up when i have more info.i think it would look good with the rear doors suicide(kinda like the old lincolns).also i am going to look for some kind of wood streering wheel,

[Rackne]

You're going to horrify the purists, better go with gull wings.

[68greezr]

i know,but i just can't stand it any longer.been building and fabbing cars/truck/jeeps/for so long i just can't do stock.i went out and looked at hinges and i think if i can get another set from the junk yard ,i can make it work.so this is my plan:i'm going down to the junk yard and buy some rear doors for a proto type,p/u the hinges and start to figure this out,i think i can use most of the orig door hardware.i'll be looking forward to more of everyones comments and ideas,and will post pics and etc as i go.

thanks again

[300SDog]

How can you work the hinge around curved rear door that accomodates wheel well?? It was front doors not rear doors that were suicide on the early '50s 170 sedans and coupes.

If it was me, I'd think Pagoda 113 with straight cut doors would be better candidate...... hell, you could even bluff 'em at car shows saying it was lesser known retro-experiment of engineering along the lines of gullwing 300SL - if you really did a superb conversion.

Basically, i would think the 113 or better yet, massive straight cut doors of 114 or 123 coupes would make better candidate for this kinda custom work. Yep, the extended length of later coupe doors that even close behind the drivers seat seem to invite this kind of exploratory idea.

And the cool thing about doing this with say, '73 250C, is that the car would be contemporary to 4 dr Thunderbird - Ford's last deployment of suicide doors that ran for only one year, i think.

It strikes me the big deal would be obtaining enough room after the door was swung wide open to actually get into the car and sit on the seat...... hence my suggestion that later vintage coupe models might make this to work.

[68greezr]

hey dog,hope you had a good holiday.i agree that i will have some things to deal with,but thats half the fun!if it was easy everyone would have em.don't know if it will work but i think it will (with a little help from my wirefeed!!!oh yeah ,going back with landstar,i'll send you a pm and give ya the scoop.

it's not what you can buy,it's what you can build.

[pyrOman]

I like your attitude 68!

I too like the "uncommon" look on just about any car. Had been wanting to swap motors on my '71 280s for a 350 Chev but after reaserching through here I think I'll just "beef up" the I-6 with side draft Webbers.

Sorry to ramble off subject. Good luck and do keep us posted with your progress. It sounds interesting to say the least.

[68greezr]

ok,since i'm on a roll.heres a couple of mod's i've done:
2 1/4 exhaust with flowmaster,tucked all the pipe up close to the body so it looks clean under there.i could'nt find any round fog lights(not that theres any fog in new mexico)but i always like the way they looked ,so i got a set of hella 500's and went to the tint shop and had the lenses tinted amber,works great.the new tint stuff they use now is not bothered by heat,but those are some bright fog lights,lol.
going to fab up new hindges abd stuff for the suicide doors,will post as i go.

thanks again,greezr


it's not what you can buy,it's what you can build!!!!!

[Tomguy]

About as custom as my car gets is in the form of a completely functional 475MHz computer in the trunk with lines which run to the (Blaupunkt) stereo's Aux-in and to the 6" 16x2char LCD display so that I can play (and view) my MP3s. (It's easy to do with an old cruddy computer that nobody would buy )

I'm thinking of a different type of suicide doors - a whole suicide car, actually. ~20,000 volts running through it as a "Theft Deterrent" system Remotely controlled, of course. I'd put a blinking light on the dash to indicate ON status as well as have a little beep/chirp to tell me if I turned it ON or OFF! (it might be important )

[Mark DiSilvestro]

Repeated last week, on local TV, was a video clip about a South African auto accessory - an undercar-mounted flamethrower for incinerating would-be carjackers and other nearby hoodlums!
(Might also be usefull for getting out of heavy snow!)

Happy Motoring, Mark

[guydewdney]

Originally posted by Tomguy
About as custom as my car gets is in the form of a completely functional 475MHz computer in the trunk with lines which run to the (Blaupunkt) stereo's Aux-in and to the 6" 16x2char LCD display so that I can play (and view) my MP3s. (It's easy to do with an old cruddy computer that nobody would buy )

ooooh - more info more info?

do you have a website / diagram?

how do you control it? what OS do you use?

this is exactly my route - with my W114 pimpmobile... I have already sorted the DVD player (i bought a 40 quid (30 dollar?) player made by some dodgy korean company I think, ripped it open, and the mech is powered by a 12V and 5V supply line - with wires...! so simple 12V and 5V regulator, and off we go... 5" black and white TV (CRT to try to keep to the standard of the year... ish...)

parking sensors to be put in as well - but using neons (like the old cash registers that had numbers moving back and forth - were they neon???) / old style bulbs as warning instead of LEDs


Guy
(nutter)

[Tomguy]

OS is DOS.
Computer is powered by an inverter (I was lazy and didn't feel like making a regulator - the 12V line on a car varies greatly and can go up above 14V, way too much for a PC board). The inverter was under $30 at Sam's Club (A Wal*Mart bulk store, members-only spinoff)
I do have a schematic and am working on putting up a few pages with pictures and instructions/advice/details, including software (some of which is now hard to find).

The big catch for me was that I needed a PC with an ISA slot (Which I had) and then a SB16 ($10 off eBay). The software has since been updated to work with other cards but none worked properly for me (including a SB16 PCI bought in a store).

The inverter is under my seat, I can reach down and flip the switch easily. The power runs through a cable (it was $0.67 a foot at Home Depot) to an outlet box in the trunk (The box was like $0.50 and the cover was like $0.20). I have a $20 7" B+W monitor back there for setup/diagnostics which is normally off as well. The other cables are run through from my trunk to the LCD, Keyboard, and Stereo (at the same place the power cable does). The biggest PITA in installing it was that I had to actually bend the metal out from around the hole to make it bigger so the parallel cable's fat end could fit through it.

Good luck finding an LCD - you can use up to a 4x40 but I wanted a large character 16x2, and I found only ONE website with it, which has since sold out. eBay has a few every now and then though.

I'll send you the URL when I get the site up.

[guydewdney]

i was going to run the B&W TV as a monitor - with a nice fat bakelite switch operating a composite video switchover (from the reversing cameras.. long story..) - using (maybe) a propritety RGBS/ VGA to Composite converter...

the TV would be 'popping' out of the mono central speaker hole on the dash..

you still have not explained how you change tracks / albums..?




but if we can swap ideas it would be great.. I reckon the suicide doors would be easy - the std system is just a few holes in the A pillar, with a set of threaded holes on a moveable plate - simple to re-create on the 'B pilar' - even though on the Coupe it doesnt exist..


my PC knowledge runs out at windows 2K setup.. BTW