Chapter 14.4 - Door Striker Modifications

[nolastyankee]

Here goes the first try at a post in the new forum...Let's see how it works!

Attached are some photos of the modifications we are making to the door striker plate. After cutting it from the car, it was shortened by 2" to allow it to sit flush behind the door jamb. An "L" was made to tie the striker into the floor, and over into the frame. A forward brace was made to tie into the cowl brace. The last pictures show a flat support that will be blended into vertical section behind the seats to provide side to side stiffness between the braces. Overall the change should give us a nice mounting point for the interior pieces, and will provide additional cockpit rigidity and side protection! More shots to come once both sides are fabbed up and installed.

[RJacobsen]

Brian, The bracing looks real good. I knew you would come through with something special.

[pgermond]

Amazing..... very nice!

[ralphscott]

Really innovative Brian. Looks like you and your Dad have really been talking the build through. Was it hard to fabricate? How does the door latch feel with this innovation. You know the door latches on the Cobra are the same ones I had on my 1953 MG-TD!![]

Ralph

[eliminator]

Very nice modification, should be very rigid. Good job.

[nolastyankee]

I wish I could take all the credit for this, but the design was lifted from the Premier cars. The painter doing our body had worked for Premier for many years and we pretty much lifted the best aspects of their design and modified the rest. Interestingly, we started off this project not so much to change the striker, but to get it to fit behind the return in the cockpit. Initially it stuck out as much as 1/4" and was not square top to bottom. After looking at the design, we realized the current striker was only 'glassed in. That's when our anal-retentive-engineering-minds took over!

If anyone building their car is interested, I can probably get some dimensions and drawings together if you want to fab these up.