John McM

rkwfxd

So.....

My 90 C2 has had the dreaded door click on the driver side door since I bought it in May 2017. One of those things that I will get to. After reading this thread I ordered a new door strap to install in a few weeks when I install some 6-1/2" speakers and one touch window electronics. Anyway, I went out tonight to take a better look with a mirror and a flash light. Yep, sure enough I could tell that the squarish rubber o ring or whatever you call it is starting to fall apart. No biggie, the new door strap came with one of those. But wait, there's more. DANG IT!!!!!! I can see a very small crack starting to migrate from the top bolt hole. And on even closer inspection, those darn bolts are literally finger loose, not finger tight but finger loose. I grabbed a 10mm and tightened them up. Bingo - no more click.

So my click is gone and now when I work on that door I think I am going to need to remove it and stop that crack with a small spot weld from the MIG to prevent further damage. Heck, I might not even have to remove the door if I am clever/lucky enough. Tomorrow when I pull the car out of the garage I will check to ensure the bolts on the passenger side door strap are nice and snug BEFORE it starts to crack and click.

I believe the bolts got loose over time and the metal eventually cracked. When I install the new one(s) I will use a bit of thread locking compound and be sure to put a socket on those bolts once a year or so to ensure they are still tight rather than wait for another click.

rkwfxd

Just as I expected. The door strap bolts on the passenger door were a bit loose as well.

Check your bolts folks.

dukmon

Dodged a bullet, IMO. Just got my car back and it was definitely the door pin being worn. They replaced the pin with a 6mm screw and a brass sleeve to accommodate the slightly larger (wallowed out) pin holes.

Open and closes as it should and set me back $75.00.

dlpalumbo

So I decided to pull off door pocket and speaker to take a look at door stop bumper. Couldn't see it because speaker has a baffle. So I have to take off panel. Everything going fine until I get to the 5 mm hex nuts. One already felt wallered out so I backed off and tried the other. Wouldn't budge up to the point I felt it would give. These are 5 mm right?

This reminds me of removing bolts that held seat in. Metal was so soft I wiped one or two and had to drill out. I was told seats were like that because the designers wanted bolts to break lose when rear ended. But why these bolts?

Even if I decide to drill them out, the two bolts above the door handle would be a problem.

Anybody have any practical experience with these things?

Thanks,

Dan

mbintx

On a related note, is there a way to adjust the doors so they don't open as freely to their full open position? I'd like a bit more resistance to them opening all the way when I exit the car.

dlpalumbo

If you look at this DIY over on Pelican's site, you'll find the writer had the opposite problem. His door was too hard to open. To fix it, he opened up the assembly and trimmed two rubber pieces that act as drag on the sliding piece of the catch. Not sure how you'd increase the drag though....

Boeing 717

I have wondered if you could mod doors on the older cars to accept the panamera door straps that hold the door in any position you put it.

dlpalumbo

Some practical advice. Good quality tools rock. I recalled I had a set of hex head sockets tucked away. Dug them out and they had a better fit than the hex wrench I had been using. Used this to crack one of the two top bolts. The other was bunged and hopeless, so I thought. I couldn't use the good hex bit on the two bolts behind the door handle as I didn't have an appropriate extension, so I tried the ball end of my hex wrench leveraged with a small vice grip. Popped both those bad boys loose. Then I figured, what the heck, lets try the ball end on the bunged bolt. It got a grip and popped it free. How about that? I was surprised. I had felt that the hex wrench wasn't seating far enough to get a good grip. Seems the ball end could.

Some background info. The 964 door stop has a different pn ( 964-537-057-00-OEM ) than the 993 ( 911-531-957-00-OE ) . Not sure if this difference is in the stop itself or the added bits. The 964 and 993 have different failure modes. The 964 metal fails in the door, the 993 on the A-pillar around the door stop hinge. In this Pelican DIY the write complains of a hard to open door, implies that might be cause of fatigue failure at hinge and suggest a mod to stop to reduce drag on door strap.

It has been asked in other threads why earlier 911s do not suffer from similar door stop failures. It could be that mandated side impact stiffeners increased weight of doors beyond that which stop system could tolerate. Porsche may have added dampers to 993 door straps to relieve harsh impact of door against stop, only to propagate failure to A-pillars. Just a guess. I dont really know if our doors have side impact protection.

I am going to try and fab reinforcements for the door stop. My initial thinking is one piece of sheet metal patterned after the door stop flange to go on outside of door. I intend to glue reinforcement to door for added strength to hopefully eliminate need for interior bracing. Its hard to know how far to go.

Comments?

John McM

I started this thread in the expectation I was relatively alone in this because I believed my issue was due to over extension in the wind. That seems to be an incorrect assumption.

I've been reading all of the replies and can't wait until I'm back in the same country as my car this weekend to see exactly what my issue is and if I can understand the mechanics of the door stay mechanism.

Thanks for all of the posts.

John McM

dlpalumbo

Did you purchase reinforcement plate or fab one?

John McM

dlpalumbo

Thanks. Didnt know these were available through Pelican.

John McM