[RobinHood]

Everybody knows that the door fitment on these trucks is horrible. The way my doors fit now is the product of probably 2 weeks total just getting them to fit reasonably well. The gaps in the rear are too wide, and the body gap lines are clearly going to take some massaging to get reasonable. I installed bear claw latches because my stock latches were just trashed and i could barely open and close the door as it was. I rebuilt the hinges, but not with the stock replacement kit. The hinge pins looked way too flimsy and I knew i wanted these hinges to have as little play as possible. I reamed out the hinge pin holes and used grade 8 bolts and delrin bushings and washers as spacers and greased them up pretty good. They had very little play and made it alot easier to get the doors on.

I cut out and replaced the bottom hinge plates in the door, both of mine were cracked and rusted out completely. The bottoms of the doors weren't terrible, but I will probably end up replacing the tin at the bottoms of both sides.

The bearclaws were alot easier than I though they were going to be. I used the body lines on the doors to line up the height I needed, located the striker pin, and used the pin to locate the latch center itself. I added a slight degree up because I assume once the weight of the glass is added they will want to sit down more. More than likely i will have to re-adjust them at that point in time. Both doors close nice and easy now on their own with no slamming or pushing required.

A far as handles go, I am likely going to drop the stock handles. I am not super in to the idea of electric poppers, so I am looking at trying to fabricate a flush mount frenched in style fly-out handle or button. The hardest part is the fact that I really would like to stick with key locked doors.