05/04/2017: Rear door spare
Got a mantec from RN. Did not know there are two styles, all that changes is where the bottom hinge ends up, I have the one that sits a bit lower. The 110 came with this weird thing modeled off of a pickup tailgate sort of frame using pickup hardware, which if you see my car will explain why were pickup cotters bolted into the rear of the tub, and hinges on the bumper. The door plate was blanked off with a piece of galvanized steel. I have seen old footage with some 110's having this plate bare as you see here, but the swingout was one of the concessions I am willing to make with regards to originality. The old weird carrier is not original as far as I can tell, and the PO already removed the middle hinge on the door and lost it so I have no choice if I want a door spare.
Blanking plate
Pickup Cotter bolted into where the middle hinge would be on the door
As far as I can tell these are Land Rover tailgate hinge brackets
Most everything removed from the back
Took the door apart
Somewhat funky, I would like to replace with aluminum and perhaps save the vinyl skin to swap. Very little structural integrity left.
Whoever did this hardware did a great job. Most everything was siliconed which kept the threads intact, zero sticking or corrosion. All the hardware was 8.8 and in fantastic shape. I kept all of it as spares.
Cotter was in the way of the top hinge to go in
Removed
Mantec instructions were pretty good, luckily if you see above someone had added a bit of stiffening pieces to the door so I just bolted everything in. Did not drill the extra edge holes, connection seemed more than fine for just holding the swingout to the door.
The bottom hinge ran into a problem. See the far right bolt is meant to be a dinky short one included in the kit, but the roll cage is in the way and I was not going to remove a bolt just to have the mount fit better. So Joe was over and cut into the hinge plate so we could accomodate the rollcage bolt. We did this the night the mantec was delivered so it was an interesting feeling butchering a brand new part.
The top hinge was ok, but the eagle eyed among you will notice that now the support bar that connects the rear passenger corner of the rack to the tub no longer fits there. This is something we unfortunately need to correct. Either modify the original bar with a few extra drilled holes OR fab a duplicate bar that is shorter and somewhat different. I have identical materials to make one so it is not complicated to cut and weld a bit of square tube. BUT I would like to keep the original bar because otherwise it will just get lost in a box somewhere and that's one less original piece on the car...
Bottom hinge
Same issue as with the vertical bar, it looked like the car was going to lose the bumperette because of the mount. However it almost just fit perfectly back in between the hinge pivot and the backing plate, so one bolt short I put it back on. I was really happy with this. Swapped out the roll cage bolt (the threads were trashed) later for a 10.9 grade one of the same size, then put some liquid electrical tape in the cutout gap to try and keep dirt and water away.
Works really well. The car looks a bit more correct. Still working on that vertical bar. The studs for the wheel are threaded so that I fit one lugnut each on the stud before the wheel goes on, and one each to hold the wheel to the stud over it. So in theory I have a couple spare nuts available if something gets lost or broken. Plus the stud end and nut are flush with this offset.
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