FHC resto nr. 81; Door handles

With the striping fitted to the doors they are now ready to be fitted to the car. But because I need an extra pair of hands to fit them, I started with some preparations of parts that can be fitted to the doors ones they are in the car. To start with the door handles. On the DHC they were powder coated completely black. And for this car I went the same route. Though this time I opted to have them painted in the same satin black as various body parts. Including the sills and the rear light panel to name a few. This was done because shot blasting these poor quality soft alloy parts has been proved rather difficult in the past.

And to complete the door handles I need a few more parts. So I went to the shed last Saturday to pick out all the parts I need for the door handles. To start with the parts that were gloss galvanised

Clearly some parts missing there! But then I found this box, containing parts of all the door handles I dismantled over the years. Unfortunately I overlooked this box when I sorted out the parts for galvanising. Luckily there are enough corrosion free parts in there which are in such good condition that they can be used after a good clean. 

But it clearly shows the biggest problem at the moment. A lot of time is spent in the search for parts I know I have but don’t know where they are stored! Though rummaging through all the boxes with parts also has its positive sides. As I found this small plastic box containing a complete cylinder lock set for one car (so door cylinders, ignition lock and keys of course). Rather pleased with that. More so because the boot lid and glove box lid also have matching locks!

And the last bits to go into the collection box were these plastic “gaskets” that will go between door skin and door handle. Together with two soft plastic buffers that look like they can be used to replace the old rubber buffers behind the door levers.

As fitting the doors is scheduled “somewhere” after the Nachtrit next weekend, there is no hurry yet to get the door handles finished.

Edited 21 October 2019

I checked the ignition lock’s action tonight and it wouldn’t release the steering lock. Washing it in brake cleaner and lubricating it didn’t have any effect. So it looks like I have to go for either plan B or C;

Plan B: this consists of swapping the door cylinders pictured above with the ones from ‘t Kreng and use these for the restoration together with the ignition lock from ‘t Kreng. This became superfluous when I fitted this switch panel to that car:

Plan C: here one of the good ignition locks will be used as a sample to match a set of door cylinders that has yet to be purchased.

Of the above plan B is the cheap option, as I have all parts in stock, but will involve a few hours of work to swap door lock cylinders on 't Kreng. Whereas plan C involves buying a new set of door lock cylinders, match them to the ignition lock and fit them to the '76 FHC. To be continued, but I think I do have a plan!