Has anyone fitted a brand new engine lid (pin type) to an earlier bus with piano hinges? I’m looking at the new engine lids that everyone sells, they all say can be modified to fit an earlier bus but they don’t says what’s involved
Just cut the hinge pins off and fit your hinges. It takes a bit of fettling but not much. I think I used a grinder and a drill to do mine and that was it!
I think the hinge is the captive nut so to speak as it goes inside the outer skin and you bolt into it from the outside! It’s ten years since I did mine but I did it in a couple of hours so it wasn’t too difficult!
So looking at a picture of one for sale on eBay I remember how I did it. First I cut off the pin that makes the hinge for a late. Then I measured and worked out the cut from the outside for the new early hinge to sit into and carefully cut it out with an angle grinder with a wide type disc then tidied it with a file and slid the hinge into the slot. I then positioned the new hinge precisely where I wanted it to sit and marked the two holes for the countersunk slotted head bolts. I then drilled and tapped for the new bolts into the metal of the skin ( which was substantial enough to hold as it was a og panel replacement with thick metal ( I don’t know what yours will be like ) I then screwed the bolts into the new holes and it worked a treat. I don’t have pictures of mine thanks to photobucket, but it was very straightforward. The only issue I had was the rubber seal made it tight to shut my engine lid, probably just a bad quality seal but nonetheless worth a mention!
I did a write up of when I converted Iris' engine lid, basically as @Poptop2 describes above but I fitted a primitive captive nut to mine. https://thelatebay.com/index.php?threads/a-restoration-for-iris.53455/page-46#post-1388701
That's what happened to mine when it was restored at a body shop. I couldn't get hold of a good/cost effective original and bought a new one.
Oh most definitely but I much prefer the look of the earlier hinges. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I was thinking IIRC you replaced the hinge panel - if you were doing that anyway it would be super easy... but wrong. I bet you replaced the hinge panel before you sourced the lid thus snookering yourself and that swung it to converting the lid. Just thinking what I'd probably have done! I prefer the earlier hinges too BTW but I also like an easy life.
