I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: jacking the car onto axle stands without the doors attached.
I’m wanting to completely strip my car down with the ultimate aim of having the chassis stripped and dipped ahead of a comprehensive rebuild. The next steps as I see it are to remove the interior and the folding hardtop, for which removing the doors seems like it would make it easier. Once all that’s done, the car will be going back up on the stands to take all the rusty and/or oily bits off the bottom. My concern is that without the doors I’d end up turning the car into a banana, but I thought I’d ask on here to see if anyone’s got any experience of this entirely routine bit of the servicing schedule.
I do realise that the answer is probably “just put the doors back on if you’re worried about it”, and if that’s the consensus then fair enough, but maybe the question is interesting enough to ask anyway? There may be a cautionary tale out there we’ve not heard about yet. Of course I could be that cautionary tale…
Not done it myself, and I’ve the square root of zero savvy regarding torsional/distortion stresses but I’ve seen this sort of thing cobbled up often.
Usually a Mk1 which seem to be pretty/dodgy flexible sans doors.
Surely a simple cheap way of making a brace similar to the metal one in the picture,is a stout piece of wood bolted across the opening,e.x a piece of 4”x2”,or if not sure even 6”x2”,job done in a simple way,just a simple idea I am no expert,but sure this would do.
All best good luck Simon
y’see, now we’re getting into my kinda of bodgitnscarper level of ‘engineering’ lol
I think you’re probably right though. The brace would be under compression if the chassis does start to bend and wood is plenty strong enough under compression. Thanks for this. I can probably avoid having to learn to weld for a few more weeks now
It’s more the idea of accidentally putting a bend in the chassis that might not be visible but causes issues with the driveshaft / weirdy handling. But I have to say the lack of noise or literature from Mazda is at least slightly comforting.
My approach would be similar . However as supported by @DuratecNC , it is very unlikely that the strength design is dependent on the doors, though as I recently noted that the Mazda design team may have missed their design for maintenance classes, maybe they also missed the offdesign cases class.
This is a good suggestion @Mad_Malc , though does prompt me to ask; how on earth would I accurately measure the chassis? My heads filling up with bits of string from header rail to… err? lol
Though now I’m thinking tight string lines between key points (tbd) and if I see any sag in the lines enable panic mode?
If the shell is good and the sills are solid then I would not overthink this. Go for the top of the door apertures on both sides, pop some ‘indelible’ marks on and measure. Just two measurements to keep an eye on so not too onerous and you will sleep soundly.
I used to work on some really soggy old car chassis, it was common to find splits in them where they’d been flexing on the road.
We’re a long way from those days now, really you have nothing to worry about. Modern chassis are very well designed and strong.
If you do some extensive welding on it make sure it’s sat straight and level though.
Can you seriously see yourself going through three of these? It’s for an NA, there’ll be an NC one somewhere.
For what its worth, my NC flexes slightly when I’ve got one corner up on the jack. I know that as if you’ve ever tried opening and closing the door the side it’s jacked there’s definitely not a very opening and closing of the doors smoothly.
What this means, well there is flexibility in the body already.
@MickAP Yes, it’s exactly this really that prompted the concern in the first place. Having said that, after posting this question I spent another hour or 6 on the car and realised that I’ve been swinging the doors open and shut with the front up on stands without even thinking about it, so I’m thinking now that the main ‘concern’ point is actually jacking it up/down without doors, which of course is easily avoided by simply having the doors handy enough to put back in place while the car goes up and down.
I would like to say a massive thanks to everyone that’s responded with ideas though. A couple of permanent marks now adorn the paintwork around the header rail and the leading edge of the rear 3/4 panel. I’ll do my best to update here about any movements throughout this process, particularly if it turns out to be bad news
In regard to this i spoke at length with the chap who was repairing, and welding chassis pieces that are the main issues on a mk2. luckily the sills midsection were strong inner and outer with just minor corrosion at either ends. I had supplied the full sills, together with the 4 front chassis parts that are affected… he rang me later after he had had another poke around… your sills are ok and repairable without removal, had we had to do this i would have welded an x bracket acroos the door gaps as thats where the strength is on any softtop… seen Midgets that some one had repaired sans door strentheners and the doors were too big after they did the repairs… and my 03 na was solid and painted without doors or screen attached… without issue and it was many a shape before it was back on the ground, i have the pics before during and finished…SO IF ANYONE needs FULL SILLS they are available… will
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