I decided a few weeks ago to suicide style the rear door hinges on my 1949 Hudson. I'll be leaving the front doors stock.
In all my research from those who have done custom or pre-fabbed kits the thing to do is to get the hinge pin location outward towards the quarter panel skin and towards the door as far as possible.
Given this is a unibody car with a unique body contour/profile I had to build my own hinges as the thing I noticed about the pre-fab kits is that they join the pockets straight inline like in image #1 - which is fine for most cars but the body profile of the Hudson is more at an angle from the roof line down as shown in this image...
Here's a prototype picture that really shows this angle and where the assembly has to sit to align the hinge pins level and vertically...
I know the lower hinge itself is most likely going to cause me some grief given the distance from the quarter panel due to the angle - the top hinge is as close as it can get to the recommended placements.
Here's a picture of a beautiful custom Hudson where they did all 4 door suicide style - but you can see here that the implementation caused the doors to swing up at an awkward angle when opened and don't open fully. I can't imagine what a PIA it is to get in and out of this car - I want my doors to open level and smooth and fully.
So here's a picture of what I've finished tack welding into place so far.
Given this information my twisted thinking is instead of the hinge itself being a 90 degree that it needs to have a curve applied near the hinge point to make the door move forward and out as it opens to clear the quarter panel edge - something like this...
So...anyone who's done this before I'd love to hear some feedback on possible hinge designs. Thanks ~ maybe someday I'll quit making mods and get this beast on the road :thumbup:
In all my research from those who have done custom or pre-fabbed kits the thing to do is to get the hinge pin location outward towards the quarter panel skin and towards the door as far as possible.
Given this is a unibody car with a unique body contour/profile I had to build my own hinges as the thing I noticed about the pre-fab kits is that they join the pockets straight inline like in image #1 - which is fine for most cars but the body profile of the Hudson is more at an angle from the roof line down as shown in this image...
Here's a prototype picture that really shows this angle and where the assembly has to sit to align the hinge pins level and vertically...
I know the lower hinge itself is most likely going to cause me some grief given the distance from the quarter panel due to the angle - the top hinge is as close as it can get to the recommended placements.
Here's a picture of a beautiful custom Hudson where they did all 4 door suicide style - but you can see here that the implementation caused the doors to swing up at an awkward angle when opened and don't open fully. I can't imagine what a PIA it is to get in and out of this car - I want my doors to open level and smooth and fully.
So here's a picture of what I've finished tack welding into place so far.
Given this information my twisted thinking is instead of the hinge itself being a 90 degree that it needs to have a curve applied near the hinge point to make the door move forward and out as it opens to clear the quarter panel edge - something like this...
So...anyone who's done this before I'd love to hear some feedback on possible hinge designs. Thanks ~ maybe someday I'll quit making mods and get this beast on the road :thumbup: